Join me today for Episode 1027 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- EU Stablecoin Corruption
- Czech Central Bank Considers Bitcoin
- UK May Sell $6.3 Billion of BTC
- Utah Passes BTC Reserve Bill Out of Committee
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
Circle P:
Tie Dye shirts created by Jason High
https://plebeian.market/community/af7f9ca338432f5ec9bebcb55ce44d179b93f860490d91dcf0d6a077697162af:guyeye-apparel-lt15ont3mn
Job Opportunity: https://primal.net/e/note1ezzgzpe9y3d4ep4xugvt32j3kgr4hswc3qep5xgfjvja4cs66j9s9gcetc
The King Ranch Donation Pages:
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Articles:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-com-delist-usdt-europe-mica-compliance
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/preston-pysh-explains-why-sab-121-beats-a-strategic-bitcoin-reserve
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/01/29/czech-central-bank-governor-to-present-plan-to-add-bitcoin-to-its-reserve-ft
https://www.theblock.co/post/337688/trumps-media-company-launches-truth-fi-a-fintech-with-crypto-ambitions
- https://www.cnbc.com/futures-and-commodities/
- https://dashboard.clarkmoody.com/
- https://mempool.space/
- https://value4value.info/
- https://fountain.fm/show/eK5XaSb3UaLRavU3lYrI
- https://geyser.fund/project/thebitcoinandpodcast
https://atlas21.com/uk-government-may-sell-6-3-billion-in-bitcoin-to-balance-public-finances/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/utah-house-committee-passes-bill-for-state-to-buy-crypto
https://decrypt.co/303255/south-dakota-seeks-to-establish-bitcoin-reserve-as-more-states-join-the-trend
https://decrypt.co/303290/paradigm-eff-tornado-cashs-roman-storm
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[00:00:02]
David Bennett:
From the land of rolling hills and grazing cows and blueberry towns, this is David Bennett with the Bitcoin and podcast bringing you all the news you can use from Bitcoin and beyond. And I'll tell you what, man. There is, a little bit of, well, rolling interest in what Michael Sailor had been doing with this preferred stock offering. It's now starting to really impact how people are thinking about what's going on. And I brought it to you either yesterday was it yesterday or the day before? This Stark, s t r k, that's MSTR's preferred stock that you can, I don't know, I guess, punch out at a hundred bucks if it gets there?
And if it doesn't, it starts giving you variable interest rates. So if it's like, if the strike price ends up being a hundred bucks, I think you get 4% or 8%. But if that stock drops to $50, then it's gonna start paying a dividend rate of, like, 16%. It's all it's all very interesting simply because it's kind of new, but I'm not gonna talk about that 1. I I need to get some little little bit more, professional people kind of figure out what the hell this thing is and then and then I will see if I can bring it to you, break it down a little bit more, but that is definitely not gonna be today. Because today, we're talking about Tether in Europe. Apparently, they're in a little bit of problems or having some trouble there.
Preston Pish has a pretty decent explanation about the strict what was it? The staff accounting bulletin 01/21. We're gonna dive into the Czech Republic for a little bit. Trump, I don't know how many ethics commissions Trump is going to gin up during his term, and I'm not talking about him ginning them up. I'm talking about him doing stuff that is gonna cause people like Elizabeth Warren to lose their collective shit and have an ethics probe. I get the feeling this is going to be like 1 a week for the entire four year, run of this new presidency because he's doing some weird stuff that even I'm like going, wait a minute.
I I I don't know if that's really a good idea to do while you're president. We'll we'll talk about it. The UK government is, is like a child holding a revolver, you know, like a pistol that that the cylinder flips out and you got, like, you know, 5 or 6 slots to put rounds in. And and it's like a child holding, you know, the pistol with the cylinder out in 1 hand and and a single round or maybe 2 or 3 rounds in the other and and just kind of willy nilly puts them in there and then flips the gun shut and rotates the cylinder and puts the gun to their head, yeah, you'll you'll understand more about what they want to do and why it's a little bit of Russian roulette.
Utah in the news. South Dakota in the news. And Paradigm and EFF are rallying behind Tornado Cash's Roman Storm amid mister Storm's legal battle, and we'll get into all of that. But first, we're gonna do crypto.com. They're going to delist Tether. I'm pausing for dramatic effect because if you've been listening or listening to the show, that means that you've been in Bitcoin for long enough. You know what Tether is. It it doesn't. It it I'm not suggesting that you go buy go out and buy Tether. That is not what I'm talking about. But it has become part of the infrastructure of cryptocurrency whether we like it or not.
I am personally not a fan. However, I'm also not so naive as to think that because I'm not a fan that it's just going to go away. No. It's not going to go away. And yet yet Europe just seems to not understand what the hell's going on in the world because they're going to delist Tether and 9 other tokens in Europe on January, which would be Friday. That's Crypto.com. They're going to do that. And Helen Parks is going to tell us, well, how. And this is from Cointelegraph. Crypto dot com is among the first platforms to announce the delisting of Tethers, USDT, and 9 other tokens in Europe following the implementation of the markets and crypto assets regulation framework, otherwise known as MICA.
Crypto.com will suspend the purchase of Tether along with 9 other tokens in line with Europe's MICA regulations, Friday, January, a spokesperson for the exchange confirmed. After disabling deposits, the exchange will continue to support withdrawals for the affected tokens until the end of the with a full delisting scheduled on March. Quote, users holding these tokens will have until the end of the or the March, to convert them to Mica compliant assets. Mica compliant assets. Otherwise, they will be automatically converted to a Mica compliant stablecoin or asset of corresponding market value, Crypto.com's representative said.
Crypto.com's MICA related delistings will affect a total of 10 cryptocurrencies according to social media reports citing an email notice from the exchange on January. Excuse me. Apart from USDT, they're also going to delist wrapped Bitcoin, DAI, PAX dollar, PAX gold, PayPal USD, crypto dot com staked ether, Crypto dot com staked sol, liquids CRO, c r 0, and x s g d, which I have absolutely no idea what that shitcoin is, but I can guarantee it is a shitcoin. Anyway, the delistings come in line with a recent statement from European Securities and Market Authority, which pushed European crypto asset service providers to restrict non MICA compliant stablecoins on January.
And if you thought it ended there, no. No. No. No. There are more USDT delistings on the way. USDT delistings in the European Union have been a hot subject in the crypto community since Coinbase announced USDT delisting as a noncompliant stablecoin under Micah in After delisting the stablecoin in offered its clients conversion to of USDT into Mica compliant options, including Circle's USD coin. Now let's pause here. Why does Circle get to be compliant with Micah, but you but Tether does not? When Tether is clearly if if I'm I'm just I'm just being the weatherman here. I'm just talking about the fact that it is raining, and I'm about to say how hard it's raining. It doesn't mean that I like the rain, and it doesn't mean that I don't want want it to rain. It just means I'm telling you it's the rain.
USDT is the bulk of stablecoins on the planet. And yet, Jeremy Allaire and Circle and Jeremy Allaire is 1 of the guys behind Circle, and he was 1 of the guys that signed his name to what? The New York agreement trying to scuttle Bitcoin back in 2017. He's a scumbag. Circle is a scumbag company. And yet Circle gets to still operate in Europe as a stablecoin, but Tether does not. Can you say how do you spell corrupt? Do you spell it like you would spell something like bribery? I don't know. Anyway, as MICA regulations enter full force on December, many key CASPs in the EU continued trading USDT after the delisting on Coinbase.
Since full MICA enforcement, multiple CASPs in Europe have obtained MICA licenses, while others, including Crypto.com, have been actively working to secure 1 in Malta. Juan Ignacio Ibanez or Abanlez, a member of the technical committee of the MICA crypto alliance, was correct in interpreting the ESMA statement that urged European Union's CASPs on January to restrict non MICA compliant tokens. Quote, no trace of USDT should remain, not even in sell only mode by March, said. I think it actually look. I had a guitar. It was actually a really nice guitar. It was an Ibanez.
And even though we've got the tilde over the end here in this person's name, it was the same with Ibanez guitars back in the day, you know, in the and stuff. And we always pronounced it Ibanez, and Ibanez just sounds bad, so I'm not going to use it. But USDT is the largest stablecoin on the market, like I said, with a market capitalization of a hundred and $39,000,000,000 at time of writing according to CoinGecko. Its largest competitor, USDC, was green lighted as a Micah compliant stablecoin last year in July 0. The USDC market cap currently amounts to 52,000,000,000.
Wow. Like, less than half of the market cap, and I honestly don't think it's that high. But hey. Whatever. I'm just saying somebody bought some strippers and a huge bag of blow for somebody at Davos, like, I guess, a couple of years ago to make sure that Tether would not be active in the European Union, but Jeremy Allaire's circle, USD Circle or USD the USDC stablecoin for Circle. No. No. No. That that's okay. That's okay because Jeremy Allaire and Circle don't care about you. And they will do anything that regulators tell them to do because they want the market. I'm not technically saying that capitalism is bad.
I'm saying that we do have a tendency and and this is this is true for all forms of government or economics. No matter what the form of of economics or government is, you're always going to accidentally end up harboring those people that are the worst people ever. The people whose carbon in their body should better would be of better use upon a grill cooking a steak than it does forming part of their proteins and neuronal structure that allows them to walk around and steal people's money and not give a shit about their privacy. Hello, Jeremy Allaire. I'm just I'm I'm making the statement.
I'm just saying it like it is. This is the way that I see it. Circle gets to hang out because Circle bought Hookers and Blow for European Union people over there at Davos. That's that that is that is the what I'm leveling at Circle. And it's not because I'm in love with Tether. It's because clearly there's some chicanery going on. Alright. Now breaking, Circle p is open for business. I'm going to plebeian.market. That's plebeian.marketplebeian or plebeian, depending on how you wanna pronounce it. I like plebes. Plebeian Market, where you can get all kinds of goods and services. And you pay in Bitcoin because if you're not paying a Bitcoin, you're not in the circle p. Today's featured vendor from plebeian.market is what the hell how do you pronounce this guy's name? Oh, yeah. Jason high hold on. Jason high art.
Jason High Art makes really nice tie dye t shirts. He also does some oil painting too, but what I'm looking at is his stall, and he's got 4 different tie dye shirts. Now they cost 35,000 sets. That's gonna be roughly around, I don't know, $37.38 bucks. But he will sell it to you in Satoshis. You can just you can use Lightning Network with plebian. Market. I think you can use, like, regular old fashioned Bitcoin on chain. I would highly recommend using Lightning if you can. These shirts are awesome looking tie dye shirts. And if you've never owned a tie dye shirt because I don't wanna be a hippie, get over yourself. These particular tie dye shirts are awesome looking. I love tie dye. You know what I don't see very often? Tie dye socks. That's what I want. I don't want Bitcoin socks. Jason, hi. Please make me some tie dye socks.
Just get just go just go over to Walmart, buy a big ass bag of Dickies, throw them all in a vat of your tie dye stuff tied up with rubber bands or however it is that you do it, and I will buy that son of a bitch from you. I will buy all 12 pairs of those socks from you. I swear to god. But these shirts, go get 1 of these shirts, man. They don't have Bitcoin on them. That's not Bitcoin swag. It's just a fully functional, beautifully dyed t shirt. If you need to go see what these things look look like, and and you should. You should go see what these things look like. The the direct link to Jason High Art stall on plebian.market will be in the show notes under the heading circle p. So if you go to the show notes, you'll see circle p. And if you click the first URL, you will get to plebian.market and go it will take you directly to the stall where you will see not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 badass looking tie dye t shirts.
And hopefully, Jason, if you hear this or somebody tells you about this and you make a sale or oh, hey. If you buy from Jason High, do what you can to let him know that you heard about his product on the circle p. And maybe, just maybe, because I gave him a little bit of free advertising, he'll get me back on the back end if I make a sale. So if you buy something from him and you tell him that you bought it from me, you're supporting not only Jason High, you're not only supporting plebian. Market, you're also supporting the Bitcoin and podcast, You're supporting Jason High. You're supporting the the the the Bitcoin circular market.
I mean, we I mean, it's not that I want you to spend your Bitcoin. I'm just saying if you if you wanna buy something and you want to use Bitcoin and use the rails that Bitcoin offers you, plebian.market and Jason Hyart is definitely 1 of the places that you can do that. Speaking of plebian.market, chief monkey on Nostr has a job opportunity. The job opportunity is knocking. It's knocking. It's saying, hello. I have a special delivery. And chief monkey says, job alert. I am looking for a new Freedom Tech lover to join the team at Plebeian. Some of you may think of Plebeian as a marketplace, but that's simply the first app of an infinitely expandable content management system and a circular economic community builder, an anything app, if you will. I am looking for a developer with a demonstrable portfolio of Bitcoin slash Nostra projects, work, commits, etcetera. You know, somebody who is known and active in the community.
You will have bags. You will be a bag holder of initiative and be willing to take the lead when necessary. It's only twenty hours a week because I want you to have other projects and time with your family. However, to pay is pretty decent and 100% in Bitcoin. Speak to the other members of my team. Please check out the project on GitHub. It is, of course, free and open source software. If you're up for a video chat, please get in touch. If you are a developer and have worked on Bitcoin and or Nostr, you need and and you're looking for something to do and get paid for it, go to chief monkey. Say, hey, mister monkey.
I I want I want to help out. I want to work on plebian.market. Because, honestly, when 1 of the things that caught my attention about plebian about, well, this note, but also not just the job offering, but plebian.market as a whole, was this sentence right here. This is simply the first app of an infinitely extendable content management system and circular economic community builder. Now the second part, I mean, I can kinda get what he's getting at, but it's the extendable content management system, a CMS. Now that is a well defined situation in, well, developer circles, publishing circles. I mean, if you're doing digital content at 1 or another, you've run across a content management system.
Sometimes, you could just consider, like, straight up, you know, Nostra as a content management system. But if you get deep into the weeds of what a CMS really does, that sentence right there really excites me about what chief monkey and his team are doing over there at plebeian.market. So if you need a job, go talk to the chief. Chief monkey. Hey. Hey. We're the monkey. Alright. Preston Pish. Yeah. I know. Preston gets all he gets he gets probably too much notoriety, but he does have a tendency to know what he's talking about, which is probably why he gets a lot of attention. I'm just saying. I mean, you know, I I I I I call it like I see it. Anyway, so from Bitcoin Magazine, Mark Mason is right in this 1. Preston Pish explains why s a b one twenty one beats beats, not not ties, not loses out to, but beats a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Now this should be interesting. And by the way, it's written by Mark Mason. In the rapidly evolving world of Bitcoin adoption, Few, few regulatory shifts carry the magnitude of SAB one twenty one's recent rescission, which means they got rid of it. According to prominent Bitcoin advocate and investor Preston Pysh, this development is a watershed moment that could have more far reaching implications than even the much debated concept of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. SAB one twenty one, also known as the staff accounting bulletin one twenty one, introduced during Gary Gensler's tenure at the SEC imposed significant restrictions on financial institutions looking to custody Bitcoin.
Under its guidelines, banks had to classify Bitcoin custody as a liability on their balance sheets. For every dollar's worth of Bitcoin that they held, they were required to offset it with an equivalent amount of capital, typically in treasuries or other assets. The result? Institutional Bitcoin custody became economically prohibitive. Banks, wary of the capital intensive requirements, opted out of offering Bitcoin related services entirely. However, the rescission of SAB one twenty one changes that game. Bitcoin custody is now treated as an asset, not a liability, dramatically lowering barriers for major banks like JPMorgan and others to enter the Bitcoin ecosystem. And as Pish notes, quote, all the major banking institutions are now wanting to take this on. All the boys in the playground want the milkshakes, there could be loan products.
All sorts of things can pop out of this, end quote. Preston Pysch emphasizes that this regulatory shift could entrench Bitcoin as a cornerstone of global financial infrastructure, and the implications are profound. Number 1, you get broader institutional adoption because banks can now custody Bitcoin without facing onerous or onerous balance sheet requirements. And that paves the way for loan products, derivatives, and a host of other financial instruments tied to Bitcoin. I'm not a fan of derivatives, y'all. Just saying. Number 2, enhanced legitimacy.
The willingness of major banks to custody Bitcoin signals a growing recognition of its role in the global settlement layer. And number 3, a durable framework. Unlike a strategic Bitcoin reserve, which could be subject to political whims and administrative changes, the rescission of SAB one twenty one creates a structural shift. Quote, this entrenches Bitcoin as a global settlement layer, in my humble opinion, Pish explains. Well, while the idea of a strategic Bitcoin reserve has captured the imagination of the Bitcoin community, Pish suggests it lacks the permanence of SAB one twenty one's impact.
Reserves can be subject to the priorities of the administration in power. A pro bitcoin government might amass reserves only for a subsequent administration to reverse course. In contrast, institutional adoption driven by the rescission of SAB one twenty one creates a systemic entrenchment. Large scale integration by private banks and financial institutions is harder to unwind and more likely to persist across political cycles. Pish acknowledges concerns that the centralization of Bitcoin custody among large institutions, sovereign influence over custodial banks could raise questions about Bitcoin's decentralization and the potential for its misuse.
However, he also points to mechanisms like BlackRock's application for in kind redemptions in its Bitcoin ETF as a counterbalance to such risks. Quote, if this in kind redemption or if sorry. If this in kind redemption is honored by the SEC, which I really hope it will and I suspect it will be, it would really offset the concern of rehypothecation happening within the custodians, The rescission of SBSAB one twenty one represents a monumental shift in Bitcoin's journey towards mainstream adoption. By removing barriers for institutional custody, it paves the way for Bitcoin's integration into the global financial system in a manner that is more enduring than government led initiatives like a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
As Preston Pish, general partner at Ego Death Capital notes, this development entrenches Bitcoin as a global settlement layer and opens the door to a host of financial innovations. The Bitcoin community must remain vigilant about the risks associated with institutional custody, but there's not denying the bullish implications of this regulatory breakthrough. The next era of Bitcoin adoption has begun, and SAB one twenty one's rescission is leading the charge. Yeah. Well, I've I have yet to see a bank actually, you know, take part of it. So until JP Morgan or Bank of America or Wells Fargo rolls out a marketing plat or a marketing push that says, hey. We're gonna offer you Bitcoin custody services.
Come talk to your Wells Fargo financial advisor to learn more. Until I see that, this entire SAB one twenty one thing is just pissing in the wind. So I'm waiting before I make any conclusions whatsoever about the the concrete ramifications of the rescission of s a b one twenty one, then it's just a dream we're just living in a dream world. Now that said, I want to say something about the strategic Bitcoin reserve. Under if it is installed by an executive order, that executive order, as we know, is easily rescinded by another executive order from the next president that sits in that chair, and that's just four short years away.
Now if they're like, you know, hey. I like Trump, and I like what he I like what he did. Well, then chances are good it would stay around. But if it was if it's like another Obama acolyte or, you know, Clinton acolyte or something like that, that's probably gonna go away unless it is so wildly successful, which it probably would be, that only an idiot would risk the rest of their political career by rescinding that. However, the problem is is that it can be done simply by another executive order wiping out the first executive order. So then what's the next step? Well, the next step is not the rescission of SAB one twenty one. No. No. No. No. It's senator Lummis' at the Bitcoin Reserve Act, the an actual law.
Well, in a lot of ways, I I structurally, I think that that's more impactful than the rescission of SAB one twenty one because SAB one twenty one was a staff accounting bulletin. It's not a law. It wasn't an executive order. It was like this internal memo that said, hey. We're at the SEC. We don't think that that bank should be able to custody, crypto assets without doing this. It wasn't ratified by congress. You know, it it was it was he didn't they they didn't you know, Gensler didn't walk up the hill or over to the White House to get something signed. They just did it. What's to say that the rescission of SAB one twenty one could not be resized itself in a reinstantiation of something like SAB one twenty one, and they'll call it SAB one twenty five.
Hey. If you're holding Bitcoin on the balance sheet for your customers, you better end up having to you know, you it's now gonna be a liability and not an asset, and you're gonna have to actually get cash to back that up. Well, for in in in my view, the Bitcoin reserve strategic Bitcoin reserve act or the Bitcoin reserve act or whatever senator Cynthia Lummis is calling it, that has a lot more teeth, in my opinion, than depending on the rescission of the SAB one twenty one to make any kind of hallmarks. And the second thing that I wanna say about the strategic Bitcoin reserve and this SAB one twenty one, and don't get me wrong, I I like the fact that SAB one twenty one is gone. I love it. It's great.
I don't trust it to hold because I don't trust anybody in this government to actually make a high quality decision that lasts any longer than a few years. That said, the states. It's the states, ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna get to a couple of them in the second part of the show, but it's the states' individual actions of creating their very own Bitcoin reserve for those states that nobody seems to be really looking at when it comes to what the hell is MicroStrategy doing with this preferred stock offering, plus what is going on with the rescission of SAB one twenty one, plus the EO on a strategic Bitcoin reserve, plus the Bitcoin reserve act if it goes through congress.
Everybody's looking at that. They're really not looking at what it means to have like, let's say one third of all the states of The United States end up with their own strategic Bitcoin reserve. Well, they're part of the federal government. I mean, I don't like the federal government, but they're part of the federal government. I I think I I I think we need to put a lot more weight on what the states are doing and put and weight that alongside the importance of the SAB one twenty one rescission, senator Lummis' Bitcoin Reserve Act, and possibly an executive order out of the Trump presidency. Actually, I I'm I'm gonna put that 1 as as important at the bottom of the list. It's really gonna be the Bitcoin Reserve Act, but and the SAB one twenty one, but the states.
It's really important to understand how important that is because at that point, the states themselves become way more financially sovereign than having to depend on the federal government. And since the states are underneath the umbrella of the federal government, the federal government itself is bolstered and emboldened by the fact that if if they don't hold it directly, they hold it through their vassal states. Again, not saying that that's a good thing, but I'm not gonna cry about it either. Now we're gonna go over to Europe, Eastern Europe, in fact, and where the Czech central bank governor has proposed, you guessed it, adding Bitcoin to reserves.
This is the central bank governor of Czech, I guess. So I used to call it we used to be able to call it Czechoslovakia, but, you know, Czech Republic and now Slovakia, Two different things. Anyway, I guess we'll call it the Czech Republic Central Bank governor. Right? Not the president of the Republic Of The Czech Republic, Not any of the the little little, you know, prefectures or whatever would be like the the subheadings of the Czech Republic. No. No. No. No. This is the central bank governor. So what is this dude saying? By the way, this is written by Omkar Omkar Godbull for CoinDesk. He says, Czech National Bank governor, Alice Mickle, said in an interview with the Financial Times that he will present a Bitcoin investment plan to the board tomorrow on Thursday, which, if approved, could see the Apex Bank diversify 5% of its $146,000,000,000 reserves into the leading cryptocurrency.
Wow. Quote, for the diversification of our assets, Bitcoin seems good, Michael said, according to an interview published by the Feet and quoted by Reuters. Michael pointed to broader investor interest in cryptocurrency since BlackRock and others debuted spot ETFs a year ago. Quote, an asset under consideration is Bitcoin. It currently has 0 correlation to bonds and is an interesting asset for a large portfolio worth considering. And right now, it's only at the stage of analysis and discussion. The bank board decides and no decision is imminent. Thoughtful analyst analysis is needed, end quote, Michael said in a statement on x.
And then he go and then he says, Bitcoin has significant volatility, which is sort of a cover your ass statement. But so now the Czech Republic central bank governor is proposing, Not not 1 of the underlings, not not the secretary, not 1 of the side governors, but, you know, like 1 of the head on shows, man, 1 of the 1 of the high ups is proposing to the board that 5% of their reserves go into Bitcoin. And that's the Czech Republic. See, this is what I don't understand about the European Union. How can you be so stupid and be neighbors with people who actually get it?
Man, I'm like I said, can you spell bribery? Is it spelled anything like corruption? Well, we'll find out, I guess. Anyway, here's here's Trump, who wants he he just is begging, please, please investigate me every single day of my presidency. And I don't get me wrong. I think it's actually funny. The I am not 1 of the people that are that is that is in the throes of Trump derangement syndrome. Right? I don't know him. I've never met him. I've never had a beer with him. I have literally no idea what the hell he's doing other than what the mainstream media tells me, and I stopped listening to those assholes years ago. So I literally don't know anything about Trump. The only way I know anything about anybody is if I go out and have a beer with him. And since I'm not gonna be having a beer with Trump anytime soon, I'm never gonna know what kind of person he actually is. And I refuse to listen to CNN, CNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, all that.
However, again, playing weatherman, I'm telling you that it's raining and how hard it's raining. Don't get pissed at me because I'm not for or against the rain. But from the block's R. T. Watson, we have this headline. Trump's media company launches truth dot phi, a financial technology company with crypto ambitions. Can you say conflict of interest? I can. Yeah. Like I said, hey. I'm just telling you that it's raining. This shit is going to make Elizabeth Warren her brain's just going to melt. But after she pulls her shit together, she's going to start yelling. That's what's gonna happen because US president Donald Trump's ambitions in the world of crypto took yet another leap on Wednesday as the billionaire politicians media company launched Truth.Fi.
Yeah. Truth.Fi. Like DeFi? Yeah. Truth dot Fi, a fintech brand that may invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and crypto related securities. Trump Media and Technology Group's board of directors has approved a financial services and financial technology strategy according to a press release, Quote, to diversify the company's cash and cash equivalent reserves of over $700,000,000 as of Dec. 31, 2024, the board has approved the investment of up to $250,000,000 The investment capital will be invested in traditional investment vehicles, separately managed accounts, exchange traded funds, quote, Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies or crypto related securities, End quote, the company also said.
Trump owns over 50% of Trump Media and Technology Group which operates the social media platform, Truth Social. The company filed a trademark application back in Nov. 0. The filing mentioned services for downloadable computer software for use as a digital wallet. Launching truth.5 follows Elon Musk's social media partnering partnering with Visa to help power, quote, x money. Oh my god. Yeah. I didn't bring that shit to you yesterday. Elon is partnering with with, yeah, Visa. Yeah. Anyway, it's a his x money is a digital payments project. And while x money has yet to launch or been mentioned as having aspirations in crypto, both Musk and Trump are both developing fintech ventures while the broader digital assets industry enjoys a bullish market.
Trump and Musk became close during the lead up to the presidential election, and Musk now leads, by himself, I might add, the recently created Department of Government Efficiency. Okay. So there's a couple of paragraphs more. We don't need to read them. There's no way there is no way that Trump's enemies aren't going to use this. In fact, this is see, this is what I wonder about. This is so blatant. It's so over the top as a conflict of interest. It clearly, clearly puts him in the crosshairs of any kind of, you know, potential ethics violation investigation that could be dreamed up by his enemies, which leads me to the question.
Why would you do something so blatantly obvious? Sure. There will be some of you out there that says, well, it's because he's a narcissist. He doesn't care. No. No. I think it's a trap. I I think it's a trap. I really do. And I don't know how it would spring, and I don't know the mechanism of the trap. I'm not that smart. I'm just saying, when I see something this blatant, I have to start wondering the first thing that I there's 2 things I wonder, and the first thing is, how can you be this blind to what will possibly what is probably going to happen?
And the next thing I think about is the fact that it is so blatant leads me to believe that you got something up your sleeve, And I'm falling into the second camp. I think this is a trap that he's laying. And like I said, I have literally no idea what the trap how it sprung, what kind of poison it has, what kind of bait. I mean, I know what the okay. I know what the bait is. I that's why I think it's a trap. This is bait. It's like the meme where the guys, you know, the card, you know, for Mad Max and he's pointing straight up and he's like, uh-uh. No. That that that's bait. Yeah. This is bait. Right? So I don't but I don't know is the trap lethal or is the trap designed to just keep somebody hanging close to a tree so you can go find them later and possibly either bribe them or just shoot them in the head like they you took them out behind the woodshed. It doesn't matter. Let's run the numbers.
CNBC futures and commodities oil taking it on the chin. 1 and a quarter to the downside for West Texas Intermediate past below $73. Brittnorssee down almost a full point to $76.79. Natural gas down a third to $3.45 per thousand cubic feet. Gasoline down a half to $2.04 a gallon, but gold is essentially moving sideways. Silver, however, is up a point and a half. Platinum is up damn near 2 points. Copper is up point 7%, and palladium is up 1 and a quarter. Everything in ag is looking in the green except for cotton and rough rice. Rough rice is the biggest loser of the day, point 4% to the downside.
Biggest winner is chocolate, 2.69% to the upside. But live cattle is down 1.1%, lean hogs are up a third, and feeder cattle are down just over a full point. Dow is down a quarter of a point. Nasdaq is down a half as is the S and P, and the S and P Mini is down point 14%. It's, you know, not a whole lot of moves. Can you imagine why? Because the FOMAC is meeting today. By the time you hear this, the decision as to what they're going to do with interest rates will have already been made. Everybody is betting they're going to keep rates the same, and I am betting along those lines as well. I do not think they will go up nor do I think federal reserve rates will go down. They will stay at 4.5% or whatever it is that they are at, but everybody is, you know, basically waiting for the decision to actually come down the pipe before they start making movements.
Bitcoin is at $102,940 a coin. That is $2,040,000,000,000,.00 of market cap, and you can get 37.4 ounces of the shiny metal rocks with your 1 Bitcoin, of which there are 19816626 and a quarter of an average fees per block are really low. I mean, really low. 0,.03 BTC taken in fees per block on average. And there are how many blocks? Oh, holy smokes. Ladies and gentlemen, there is only 18 blocks carrying 55000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear high priority rates of 4 Satoshis per vByte. Low priority is gonna get you in at three. And 787 exahashes per second is the one week rolling average on hash rate, which demonstrates the security of the Bitcoin blockchain. And from the razzle of Khan actually, the razzle of Khan. Razzle of Khan, I was thinking of the wrath of Khan, but whatever.
The Razzle of Khan, which was yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and I got pies with a thousand says thank you, sir. No. Thank you. D k black sheep with 500 satoshis doesn't say a damn word, but Lupin with another 500 says thank you, sir, once again. I'm always looking forward to your next episode. Keep rocking. By the way, from what I know, Plebeian would be pronounced as follows in ancient Rome, see and then he gives a link to Plebeian's the Wikipedia entry. And it says, like English, play, but without the y, plus bay, plus an ending syllable and, pla wait. Play wait. Wait. Wait. Play, but without the y. Well, does that mean play or plaw?
Plawbayan? Plawbayan? Plawbayan? Plawbayan? I don't know. This isn't helping me. Anyway, he continues. But as Churchill once said, everybody has the right to pronounce 4 names as he chooses. I'm not you know, I kinda like Churchill. He's the guy that always told me if you're going through hell, don't stop. Good advice, honestly. Jay with 500 says, in the ALBE update, by card, they mean a dedicated section of the screen where you can import Nostra keys into the extension. Thank you, Jay. I appreciate that. BTC master with a 21 says all sats matter at all sats matter dot com. Buys. With a hundred says, thank you, sir. Dude, we already did that. Thank you. And that's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use. And if you thought the EU was stupid, we've got a little pocket of the EU. Well, actually, no. It's no longer the EU. Used to be. But there's a little pocket in Europe. We won't call it the European Union right now because UK is not in. But there's a little pocket of Europe that is even more stupid because the United Kingdom government is going to sell or says that they may sell $630,000,000,0.0 in Bitcoin to balance public finances.
Woo hoo hoo. I need I need a cuckoo clock, sound effect going on here, man. According to the daily mail, The UK may sell $630,000,000,0.0 worth of Bitcoin that it acquired through judicial seizures to address a $25,000,000,000 shortfall in public finances. So they wanna sell the greatest asset ever to fix a short term funding gap that they have that was brought about by their own stupidity, but they'll only fix it this 1 time, and then they will have no ammunition to fix the next time. And there will be a next time because the same stupidity that got them in this place in the first place is going to hang around with them like an albatross around the neck of Dracula on the fucking deck of that goddamn ghost ship that he sailed over to London. I'm telling you, these people will never ever learn. And there's no amount of Bitcoin that they can steal.
There's no amount of Bitcoin that they can buy, leverage, or do anything with that's going to fix being stupid. The wallet in question reportedly holds 61,245 Bitcoin largely originating from a case involving a Chinese national named John Wynne linked to a multibillion dollar money laundering scheme. Chris Ethereington, oh, what an unfortunate name, a partner at RSM Accounting supports the sale. Quote, there's a strong case for selling the Bitcoin right away. Jee jeeves. Let's sell our Bitcoin right away. The currency is too volatile. It's too speculative, end quote.
However, the situation is not so straightforward. Germany's experience serves as a warning because, you know, if you remember, last July 0, the country sold around 50,000 Bitcoin for $2,880,000,000,.00, an amount that would be worth over $5,000,000,000 today. Opponents, including the Bitcoin policy lobbying group, have warned of potential negative consequences of such a sale. The UK Crown Prosecution Service is currently seeking court authorization to retain control of the seized Bitcoins ahead of a possible sale. However, any proceeds may not be fully allocated to the treasury as compensation for victims and recovery costs also must be considered. If if I was if I was 1 of the people that in what that last paragraph is talking about, the people that lost their money due to this, quote, unquote, Chinese national Jan wins Ponzi scheme or money laundering scheme. Right? Okay. So let's say I'm a creditor. Like, somehow I've lost my money, my Bitcoin, to this idiot, and the UK wants to sell it.
I want to sue the UK for not giving me back my Bitcoin. If they were to sell into the open market and then wait for god only knows how long to actually give me my cash back so that I can go rebuy the damn Bitcoin. If they were to do that and I was a creditor, I would want to launch a class action lawsuit. I want the Bitcoin. Because you're too stupid to hold it. You're too stupid to understand what it is. The fact that you've got a $25,000,000,000 shortfall, and you wanna sell $630,000,000,0.0 to and you're not even gonna clear the debt, And that debt's gonna end up rolling over, and it's going to erase whatever that $630,000,000,0.0 that you put into it over the next three years because you're going to remain stupid.
So there's all manner of shit that's wrong with this. And why The UK cannot get their collective shit together about farming, finance, and Bitcoin is fucking beyond me. It's embarrassing to watch. It is embarrassing. Oh my god. It's it's this this level of stupidity is not trivial. But back over in The United States where we may actually be getting our collected shit together, who knows? We'll have to watch. We have states of the union starting to at least display a level of intelligence. Martin Young, Cointelegraph, Utah.
The Utah House Committee has passed the bill for state to buy crypto. Okay? It's not Bitcoin, but you gotta take the win where you can get it, y'all. Utah House Committee has passed. Passed. They've read it. They've commented on it, and they've passed a bill that would allow the state to invest a portion of public funds into crypto with the measure now heading to the house for a vote. The Utah House Economic Development Committee passed HB two thirty, the Blockchain and Digital Innovation Amendments, by a 8 to 1 vote yesterday, January.
Proposed the bill on January. It would give the state's treasurer authority to allocate up to 5%, just like over there in The Czech Republic, of certain public funds to buy qualifying digital assets such as those with a market cap over $500,000,000,000 or approved stablecoins. The second substitute version of the original bill was updated on January with provisions for crypto mining zoning restrictions. The bill will now head to the full house where it will need majority approval both there and in the state senate before it can be given to the governor to either sign or veto.
A total of 12 United States states, including Utah's neighboring states of Arizona and Wyoming, have introduced bills wait a minute. Wait. Hold on here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was like, my my my, US geography just flew out the window with wings. Neighboring states, Arizona and Wyoming, have introduced bills giving their local treasuries permission to buy cryptocurrencies according to Bitcoin Reserve Monitor. Satoshi Action Fund cofounder and CEO, Dennis Porter, said on Twitter that Utah is the second state in The United States to pass a similar bill out of the committee. That's important. Everything else is being looked at. These are actually ready to roll to either house or senate floors for actual voting. It's it is we're moving, y'all. We're moving. Quote, while Utah is the eleventh state to introduce similar legislation, we will be the first to pass it. Tuscher posted on Twitter on January.
Bill would require the state's digital assets to be held either through secure custody, qualified custodians, or exchange traded products. It also allows the treasurer to engage in staking and lending of crypto assets under specific conditions. I I highly recommend that the state treasurer of Utah not make loans. I'm I don't know. This has gotta be a typo. But you wanna talk about a liability that you don't wanna have any part of as a state of The United States, yeah, making loans probably not the best way to go about that shit. Anyway, the legislation would also prohibit state and local governments from restricting the acceptance of crypto assets as payment for legal goods and services.
The bill, which still needs approval from Utah governor Spencer Cox, is scheduled to take effect on May if passed. Cox appears to be pro crypto, having signed a bill to create a blockchain and digital innovation task force three years ago in 2022. Meanwhile, South Dakota representative Logan Manhart also supports the concept of a state Bitcoin stockpile. And guess what? That's next up in the news from Decrypt.co, South Dakota seeks to establish their own Bitcoin reserve as more states join the trend. This Maya v, again writing for Decrypt. South Dakota, home of Mount Rushmore, is expected to begin debating a bill that seeks to add Bitcoin to its own financial reserves.
Quote, I am proud to say I will be bringing a bill in the South Dakota house that would create a strategic Bitcoin reserve, not crypto. Actually says, end quote, strategic Bitcoin reserve. Logan Manhart, South Dakota sent state representative wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, now is 1 of the few chances government has at being proactive. You mean state governments. A time frame for when the bill would be introduced into the state's house of representatives was not provided, Decrypt has reached out to learn more about the timing and details of the bill. The state level push for Bitcoin reserves is closely tied to Trump's pro crypto stance, which has led to renewed interest in integrating bitcoin into US financial policy.
Now South Dakota's move comes as at least a dozen other states plan to introduce or have already proposed similar legislation including Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Arizona. Pennsylvania was 1 of the earliest to introduce a proposal in followed by Florida, then Texas, and then Ohio in Dec. 0. More states have joined the effort with North Dakota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Wyoming, and Utah submitting Bitcoin reserve proposals in And Arizona has gone 1 step further, approving the first leg of a Bitcoin reserve bill in its legislature that will allow up to 10% of public funds to be allocated should it pass.
The group, led by White House Crypto and AI czar, will assess the reserve's feasibility alongside other crypto related policies, and they're talking about Trump and his EO talking about that work group on crypto. And god only knows what those guys are doing over there. But be it as it may, Sachs has recently commented on the possibility of a Bitcoin reserve stating, quote, yeah, we're gonna evaluate that. We have not decided to do it yet, but, yeah, we need to study that, end quote. Wow. Yeah. These guys see, this is why I'm more concerned they're not concerned. This is why I'm more much more excited about individual states of The United States just doing it themselves.
Because this Sachs guy is a blowhard shit coiner. Alright? He may be crypto friendly, but he is a shit coiner all the way. It's it's shit coin all the way down with this guy. Right? And and I love this statement. Yeah. We're gonna evaluate that. We have not decided to do it yet, but we need to study that. Okay. Well, I thought Trump said that he was gonna do it, that there was going to be a strategic Bitcoin reserve. And now I got the crypto and AI's are going, well, yeah, maybe. See, this is the kind of bullshit I can't stand. And I don't care what camp it comes from. Blue, red, purple, green, I don't give a shit.
Make a fucking decision, dude. Anyway, with Trump's administration actively supporting crypto adoption, expectations are high that more states and even other nations will follow suit. And meanwhile, countries such as Brazil, Japan, Poland, and Russia are exploring similar reserve strategies as Bitcoin's role continues to rise on the global financial stage. We must not forget the Czech Republic, which is something for whatever reason I don't know why I'm really excited about. And to end it off Paradigm and EFF rally behind Tornado Cash's Roman Storm amid legal battle. This is Vismeia v, again, riding from decrypt again.
Tornado Cash cofounder Roman Storm's cause has drawn support from the likes of venture capital firm Paradigm and the Electronic Frontier Foundation as he faces prosecution in The US for allegedly facilitating money laundering through the Ethereum based crypto mixer. Paradigm announced that it would donate, get this, 1 and a quarter million dollars to support Roman Storm's legal defense, while the EFF has filed an amicus brief in support of the developer. Announcing the contribution to Storm's legal fund, Paradigm cofounder Matt Huang called the charges an attack on software developers. Quote, the prosecution's case threatens to hold software developers criminally liable for the bad acts of third parties, which would have a chilling effect in crypto and beyond, Matt Huang wrote in a tweet.
Acknowledging Paradigm's contribution, Storm expressed his enormous gratitude to the VC firm in a tweet. He added that, quote, your support means the world not just to me, but to every developer fighting for fairness and innovation. Thank you for believing in me and defending the principles that matter. End quote. Civil Liberty's nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, the EFF, meanwhile, has filed an amicus brief in support of Storm warning that his prosecution could stifle privacy focused software development. Quote, the EFF pointed out that holding developers responsible for how their tools are used is an overreach.
Comparing privacy protocols like Tornado Cash to physical cache or encryption tools that serve legitimate purposes, but can also be misused, the EFF wrote. It added, quote, the government's prosecution raises larger civil liberties concerns that could chill the future of development of privacy enhancing technologies more broadly. It also criticized the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in the case, saying that laws regulating such technologies should be enacted by Congress, not through broad interpretations of existing sanctions laws.
In 0 charged Tornado Cash Founders Roman Storm and Roman Seminar with money laundering, sanctions violations, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Storm's trial is set for April 2025, and the outcome of his case could have far reaching implications for financial privacy and software development. The case comes amid shifting legal ground for Tornado Cash. In Sept. 0, a New York court denied Storm's motion to dismiss his charges stating that while parts of Tornado Cash were immutable, other aspects remained under developer control. Alright. So the EFF files this amicus brief.
And for those of you and my reaction might mirror what some of you just said to yourself when I said Amicus brief. Why didn't they give them money? Because the EFF doesn't have that much money. I you know, all all of what they do, that's that's money that they have to go out and fight for themselves. So I'm not really all that concerned about it. However, what I'm concerned about with the EFF Foundation and their amicus brief is that they kept talking about how this could impact privacy preserving financial software. Instead of going for the throat and saying, this threatens every software developer in The United States and abroad because how like, think of non financial software tools that could be used to do malice, misfeasance, malfeasance.
I'll bet you I'll bet you there's a lot of them, and none of them have anything to do with dollar dollar bills, yo. There's all kinds of software. Did somebody get hurt mentally to the point that they could prove in a court of law that they were mentally just just horribly wounded on Twitter, okay. Well, then guess what? Your software development team could have problems. Facebook software development team could have problems. It has nothing at all to do with financial bullshit. If Roman Storm gets convicted on what he's getting convicted on, the civil liberties that are at risk are everybody's civil liberties, not just people that develop financial privacy software. And that's what they missed in the amicus brief. That's my opinion.
And, no, I'm not a lawyer. And, no, I've never written an amicus brief myself. But I can tell you this, I'm right. I'm right. They should have made it way more broad. They should have brought the full gamut of software development being under fire into this amicus brief rather than narrowing to a laser beam focus just those situations that impact people that are building code for financial privacy. I think that they did accident and I don't think they meant to do it. I think it's an oversight. I hope nobody notices. I I really I I mean, the people that matter, I hope that that they don't know, like the judges and lawyers. And I hope that they just say, see, man, we and I hope Roman Storm gets off.
But, man, that amicus brief just it seems way too focused. It seems way too narrow. Still, though, I pray to God that Roman storm gets off because this is all bullshit. Everything that we see like, most of the stuff that we saw today is a bunch of government like, the EU and The UK basically just flushing their citizenry's future down the toilet because of reasons, because of corruption, because of bribery. The fact that Jeremy Allaire's circle stablecoin is the only thing that Micah seems to like leads me to believe that Jeremy Allaire has bribed the European Union. Probably went over to Brussels and, like I said, dropped a brick of coke and about a limousine full of hookers on him, and all of a sudden Tether goes away from Europe.
This is not going to end well, not just for Europe and not just for Circle itself, and it's not gonna end up well for the whole thing gets gets affected. The corruption that you're going to see from government elected bodies to nongovernment organizations all the way down to, like, I don't know, city councilmen. The corruption you're going to see is going to be eye watering, is going to just make everything that we've seen beforehand look like a cakewalk. The level of shit coinery hasn't even been thought of in the wildest of imaginations.
Because we keep thinking, oh, it's gonna be like, you know, a whole bunch of people are gonna release a whole bunch of shit coins. And even I am not being very intelligent in my imagination when I say it's going to be a whole field of stable coins that are going to rip you off. I I barely even my my 4 neurons in my head are barely even functioning at an imaginative level when I say shit like that. We have no idea of what level of shit coinery we're going to see. Because now shit coinery, like the cancer that it is, is going to metastasize into something that very much does not look like a tumor you can go in and surgically remove. No. No. No. No. It's in the bloodstream now, brother.
That shit can land anywhere. It is off in the 4 winds. It's like fucking pollen. It's like like like dandelion seeds blowing in the wind, man. And everywhere it lands, it's going to cause utter destruction and the complete capture of people's wealth, especially the people that can't afford at all to have their wealth taken from them. It pains me to say it, but the EU is it's it's gone. It may still look like the EU, but if you're living in the EU, if you're living in France, I'd prepare to be French again. If you're living in Spain, I'd prepare to be Spanish again. If you're living in England, prepare to be English again. Well, you're you guys already did that. You're already out of the EU. But for the rest of the EU, you might as well start figuring out how you're not really European Union citizens.
You've always been Norwegian. You've always been a German. You've always been English. You've always been French. You've always been Spanish. Embrace it because you're going to have to because the EU is fucking over. This kind of shit is it's just it's sad. It really is. Okay. So, prayers go out to Roman storm. It's it's great that the EFF wrote the amicus brief. It's really great that the VC firm gave 1 and a quarter million dollars of cash. That is amazing, and God knows that team needs that money. I'll see you on the other side.
[01:07:46] 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.
From the land of rolling hills and grazing cows and blueberry towns, this is David Bennett with the Bitcoin and podcast bringing you all the news you can use from Bitcoin and beyond. And I'll tell you what, man. There is, a little bit of, well, rolling interest in what Michael Sailor had been doing with this preferred stock offering. It's now starting to really impact how people are thinking about what's going on. And I brought it to you either yesterday was it yesterday or the day before? This Stark, s t r k, that's MSTR's preferred stock that you can, I don't know, I guess, punch out at a hundred bucks if it gets there?
And if it doesn't, it starts giving you variable interest rates. So if it's like, if the strike price ends up being a hundred bucks, I think you get 4% or 8%. But if that stock drops to $50, then it's gonna start paying a dividend rate of, like, 16%. It's all it's all very interesting simply because it's kind of new, but I'm not gonna talk about that 1. I I need to get some little little bit more, professional people kind of figure out what the hell this thing is and then and then I will see if I can bring it to you, break it down a little bit more, but that is definitely not gonna be today. Because today, we're talking about Tether in Europe. Apparently, they're in a little bit of problems or having some trouble there.
Preston Pish has a pretty decent explanation about the strict what was it? The staff accounting bulletin 01/21. We're gonna dive into the Czech Republic for a little bit. Trump, I don't know how many ethics commissions Trump is going to gin up during his term, and I'm not talking about him ginning them up. I'm talking about him doing stuff that is gonna cause people like Elizabeth Warren to lose their collective shit and have an ethics probe. I get the feeling this is going to be like 1 a week for the entire four year, run of this new presidency because he's doing some weird stuff that even I'm like going, wait a minute.
I I I don't know if that's really a good idea to do while you're president. We'll we'll talk about it. The UK government is, is like a child holding a revolver, you know, like a pistol that that the cylinder flips out and you got, like, you know, 5 or 6 slots to put rounds in. And and it's like a child holding, you know, the pistol with the cylinder out in 1 hand and and a single round or maybe 2 or 3 rounds in the other and and just kind of willy nilly puts them in there and then flips the gun shut and rotates the cylinder and puts the gun to their head, yeah, you'll you'll understand more about what they want to do and why it's a little bit of Russian roulette.
Utah in the news. South Dakota in the news. And Paradigm and EFF are rallying behind Tornado Cash's Roman Storm amid mister Storm's legal battle, and we'll get into all of that. But first, we're gonna do crypto.com. They're going to delist Tether. I'm pausing for dramatic effect because if you've been listening or listening to the show, that means that you've been in Bitcoin for long enough. You know what Tether is. It it doesn't. It it I'm not suggesting that you go buy go out and buy Tether. That is not what I'm talking about. But it has become part of the infrastructure of cryptocurrency whether we like it or not.
I am personally not a fan. However, I'm also not so naive as to think that because I'm not a fan that it's just going to go away. No. It's not going to go away. And yet yet Europe just seems to not understand what the hell's going on in the world because they're going to delist Tether and 9 other tokens in Europe on January, which would be Friday. That's Crypto.com. They're going to do that. And Helen Parks is going to tell us, well, how. And this is from Cointelegraph. Crypto dot com is among the first platforms to announce the delisting of Tethers, USDT, and 9 other tokens in Europe following the implementation of the markets and crypto assets regulation framework, otherwise known as MICA.
Crypto.com will suspend the purchase of Tether along with 9 other tokens in line with Europe's MICA regulations, Friday, January, a spokesperson for the exchange confirmed. After disabling deposits, the exchange will continue to support withdrawals for the affected tokens until the end of the with a full delisting scheduled on March. Quote, users holding these tokens will have until the end of the or the March, to convert them to Mica compliant assets. Mica compliant assets. Otherwise, they will be automatically converted to a Mica compliant stablecoin or asset of corresponding market value, Crypto.com's representative said.
Crypto.com's MICA related delistings will affect a total of 10 cryptocurrencies according to social media reports citing an email notice from the exchange on January. Excuse me. Apart from USDT, they're also going to delist wrapped Bitcoin, DAI, PAX dollar, PAX gold, PayPal USD, crypto dot com staked ether, Crypto dot com staked sol, liquids CRO, c r 0, and x s g d, which I have absolutely no idea what that shitcoin is, but I can guarantee it is a shitcoin. Anyway, the delistings come in line with a recent statement from European Securities and Market Authority, which pushed European crypto asset service providers to restrict non MICA compliant stablecoins on January.
And if you thought it ended there, no. No. No. No. There are more USDT delistings on the way. USDT delistings in the European Union have been a hot subject in the crypto community since Coinbase announced USDT delisting as a noncompliant stablecoin under Micah in After delisting the stablecoin in offered its clients conversion to of USDT into Mica compliant options, including Circle's USD coin. Now let's pause here. Why does Circle get to be compliant with Micah, but you but Tether does not? When Tether is clearly if if I'm I'm just I'm just being the weatherman here. I'm just talking about the fact that it is raining, and I'm about to say how hard it's raining. It doesn't mean that I like the rain, and it doesn't mean that I don't want want it to rain. It just means I'm telling you it's the rain.
USDT is the bulk of stablecoins on the planet. And yet, Jeremy Allaire and Circle and Jeremy Allaire is 1 of the guys behind Circle, and he was 1 of the guys that signed his name to what? The New York agreement trying to scuttle Bitcoin back in 2017. He's a scumbag. Circle is a scumbag company. And yet Circle gets to still operate in Europe as a stablecoin, but Tether does not. Can you say how do you spell corrupt? Do you spell it like you would spell something like bribery? I don't know. Anyway, as MICA regulations enter full force on December, many key CASPs in the EU continued trading USDT after the delisting on Coinbase.
Since full MICA enforcement, multiple CASPs in Europe have obtained MICA licenses, while others, including Crypto.com, have been actively working to secure 1 in Malta. Juan Ignacio Ibanez or Abanlez, a member of the technical committee of the MICA crypto alliance, was correct in interpreting the ESMA statement that urged European Union's CASPs on January to restrict non MICA compliant tokens. Quote, no trace of USDT should remain, not even in sell only mode by March, said. I think it actually look. I had a guitar. It was actually a really nice guitar. It was an Ibanez.
And even though we've got the tilde over the end here in this person's name, it was the same with Ibanez guitars back in the day, you know, in the and stuff. And we always pronounced it Ibanez, and Ibanez just sounds bad, so I'm not going to use it. But USDT is the largest stablecoin on the market, like I said, with a market capitalization of a hundred and $39,000,000,000 at time of writing according to CoinGecko. Its largest competitor, USDC, was green lighted as a Micah compliant stablecoin last year in July 0. The USDC market cap currently amounts to 52,000,000,000.
Wow. Like, less than half of the market cap, and I honestly don't think it's that high. But hey. Whatever. I'm just saying somebody bought some strippers and a huge bag of blow for somebody at Davos, like, I guess, a couple of years ago to make sure that Tether would not be active in the European Union, but Jeremy Allaire's circle, USD Circle or USD the USDC stablecoin for Circle. No. No. No. That that's okay. That's okay because Jeremy Allaire and Circle don't care about you. And they will do anything that regulators tell them to do because they want the market. I'm not technically saying that capitalism is bad.
I'm saying that we do have a tendency and and this is this is true for all forms of government or economics. No matter what the form of of economics or government is, you're always going to accidentally end up harboring those people that are the worst people ever. The people whose carbon in their body should better would be of better use upon a grill cooking a steak than it does forming part of their proteins and neuronal structure that allows them to walk around and steal people's money and not give a shit about their privacy. Hello, Jeremy Allaire. I'm just I'm I'm making the statement.
I'm just saying it like it is. This is the way that I see it. Circle gets to hang out because Circle bought Hookers and Blow for European Union people over there at Davos. That's that that is that is the what I'm leveling at Circle. And it's not because I'm in love with Tether. It's because clearly there's some chicanery going on. Alright. Now breaking, Circle p is open for business. I'm going to plebeian.market. That's plebeian.marketplebeian or plebeian, depending on how you wanna pronounce it. I like plebes. Plebeian Market, where you can get all kinds of goods and services. And you pay in Bitcoin because if you're not paying a Bitcoin, you're not in the circle p. Today's featured vendor from plebeian.market is what the hell how do you pronounce this guy's name? Oh, yeah. Jason high hold on. Jason high art.
Jason High Art makes really nice tie dye t shirts. He also does some oil painting too, but what I'm looking at is his stall, and he's got 4 different tie dye shirts. Now they cost 35,000 sets. That's gonna be roughly around, I don't know, $37.38 bucks. But he will sell it to you in Satoshis. You can just you can use Lightning Network with plebian. Market. I think you can use, like, regular old fashioned Bitcoin on chain. I would highly recommend using Lightning if you can. These shirts are awesome looking tie dye shirts. And if you've never owned a tie dye shirt because I don't wanna be a hippie, get over yourself. These particular tie dye shirts are awesome looking. I love tie dye. You know what I don't see very often? Tie dye socks. That's what I want. I don't want Bitcoin socks. Jason, hi. Please make me some tie dye socks.
Just get just go just go over to Walmart, buy a big ass bag of Dickies, throw them all in a vat of your tie dye stuff tied up with rubber bands or however it is that you do it, and I will buy that son of a bitch from you. I will buy all 12 pairs of those socks from you. I swear to god. But these shirts, go get 1 of these shirts, man. They don't have Bitcoin on them. That's not Bitcoin swag. It's just a fully functional, beautifully dyed t shirt. If you need to go see what these things look look like, and and you should. You should go see what these things look like. The the direct link to Jason High Art stall on plebian.market will be in the show notes under the heading circle p. So if you go to the show notes, you'll see circle p. And if you click the first URL, you will get to plebian.market and go it will take you directly to the stall where you will see not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 badass looking tie dye t shirts.
And hopefully, Jason, if you hear this or somebody tells you about this and you make a sale or oh, hey. If you buy from Jason High, do what you can to let him know that you heard about his product on the circle p. And maybe, just maybe, because I gave him a little bit of free advertising, he'll get me back on the back end if I make a sale. So if you buy something from him and you tell him that you bought it from me, you're supporting not only Jason High, you're not only supporting plebian. Market, you're also supporting the Bitcoin and podcast, You're supporting Jason High. You're supporting the the the the Bitcoin circular market.
I mean, we I mean, it's not that I want you to spend your Bitcoin. I'm just saying if you if you wanna buy something and you want to use Bitcoin and use the rails that Bitcoin offers you, plebian.market and Jason Hyart is definitely 1 of the places that you can do that. Speaking of plebian.market, chief monkey on Nostr has a job opportunity. The job opportunity is knocking. It's knocking. It's saying, hello. I have a special delivery. And chief monkey says, job alert. I am looking for a new Freedom Tech lover to join the team at Plebeian. Some of you may think of Plebeian as a marketplace, but that's simply the first app of an infinitely expandable content management system and a circular economic community builder, an anything app, if you will. I am looking for a developer with a demonstrable portfolio of Bitcoin slash Nostra projects, work, commits, etcetera. You know, somebody who is known and active in the community.
You will have bags. You will be a bag holder of initiative and be willing to take the lead when necessary. It's only twenty hours a week because I want you to have other projects and time with your family. However, to pay is pretty decent and 100% in Bitcoin. Speak to the other members of my team. Please check out the project on GitHub. It is, of course, free and open source software. If you're up for a video chat, please get in touch. If you are a developer and have worked on Bitcoin and or Nostr, you need and and you're looking for something to do and get paid for it, go to chief monkey. Say, hey, mister monkey.
I I want I want to help out. I want to work on plebian.market. Because, honestly, when 1 of the things that caught my attention about plebian about, well, this note, but also not just the job offering, but plebian.market as a whole, was this sentence right here. This is simply the first app of an infinitely extendable content management system and circular economic community builder. Now the second part, I mean, I can kinda get what he's getting at, but it's the extendable content management system, a CMS. Now that is a well defined situation in, well, developer circles, publishing circles. I mean, if you're doing digital content at 1 or another, you've run across a content management system.
Sometimes, you could just consider, like, straight up, you know, Nostra as a content management system. But if you get deep into the weeds of what a CMS really does, that sentence right there really excites me about what chief monkey and his team are doing over there at plebeian.market. So if you need a job, go talk to the chief. Chief monkey. Hey. Hey. We're the monkey. Alright. Preston Pish. Yeah. I know. Preston gets all he gets he gets probably too much notoriety, but he does have a tendency to know what he's talking about, which is probably why he gets a lot of attention. I'm just saying. I mean, you know, I I I I I call it like I see it. Anyway, so from Bitcoin Magazine, Mark Mason is right in this 1. Preston Pish explains why s a b one twenty one beats beats, not not ties, not loses out to, but beats a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Now this should be interesting. And by the way, it's written by Mark Mason. In the rapidly evolving world of Bitcoin adoption, Few, few regulatory shifts carry the magnitude of SAB one twenty one's recent rescission, which means they got rid of it. According to prominent Bitcoin advocate and investor Preston Pysh, this development is a watershed moment that could have more far reaching implications than even the much debated concept of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. SAB one twenty one, also known as the staff accounting bulletin one twenty one, introduced during Gary Gensler's tenure at the SEC imposed significant restrictions on financial institutions looking to custody Bitcoin.
Under its guidelines, banks had to classify Bitcoin custody as a liability on their balance sheets. For every dollar's worth of Bitcoin that they held, they were required to offset it with an equivalent amount of capital, typically in treasuries or other assets. The result? Institutional Bitcoin custody became economically prohibitive. Banks, wary of the capital intensive requirements, opted out of offering Bitcoin related services entirely. However, the rescission of SAB one twenty one changes that game. Bitcoin custody is now treated as an asset, not a liability, dramatically lowering barriers for major banks like JPMorgan and others to enter the Bitcoin ecosystem. And as Pish notes, quote, all the major banking institutions are now wanting to take this on. All the boys in the playground want the milkshakes, there could be loan products.
All sorts of things can pop out of this, end quote. Preston Pysch emphasizes that this regulatory shift could entrench Bitcoin as a cornerstone of global financial infrastructure, and the implications are profound. Number 1, you get broader institutional adoption because banks can now custody Bitcoin without facing onerous or onerous balance sheet requirements. And that paves the way for loan products, derivatives, and a host of other financial instruments tied to Bitcoin. I'm not a fan of derivatives, y'all. Just saying. Number 2, enhanced legitimacy.
The willingness of major banks to custody Bitcoin signals a growing recognition of its role in the global settlement layer. And number 3, a durable framework. Unlike a strategic Bitcoin reserve, which could be subject to political whims and administrative changes, the rescission of SAB one twenty one creates a structural shift. Quote, this entrenches Bitcoin as a global settlement layer, in my humble opinion, Pish explains. Well, while the idea of a strategic Bitcoin reserve has captured the imagination of the Bitcoin community, Pish suggests it lacks the permanence of SAB one twenty one's impact.
Reserves can be subject to the priorities of the administration in power. A pro bitcoin government might amass reserves only for a subsequent administration to reverse course. In contrast, institutional adoption driven by the rescission of SAB one twenty one creates a systemic entrenchment. Large scale integration by private banks and financial institutions is harder to unwind and more likely to persist across political cycles. Pish acknowledges concerns that the centralization of Bitcoin custody among large institutions, sovereign influence over custodial banks could raise questions about Bitcoin's decentralization and the potential for its misuse.
However, he also points to mechanisms like BlackRock's application for in kind redemptions in its Bitcoin ETF as a counterbalance to such risks. Quote, if this in kind redemption or if sorry. If this in kind redemption is honored by the SEC, which I really hope it will and I suspect it will be, it would really offset the concern of rehypothecation happening within the custodians, The rescission of SBSAB one twenty one represents a monumental shift in Bitcoin's journey towards mainstream adoption. By removing barriers for institutional custody, it paves the way for Bitcoin's integration into the global financial system in a manner that is more enduring than government led initiatives like a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
As Preston Pish, general partner at Ego Death Capital notes, this development entrenches Bitcoin as a global settlement layer and opens the door to a host of financial innovations. The Bitcoin community must remain vigilant about the risks associated with institutional custody, but there's not denying the bullish implications of this regulatory breakthrough. The next era of Bitcoin adoption has begun, and SAB one twenty one's rescission is leading the charge. Yeah. Well, I've I have yet to see a bank actually, you know, take part of it. So until JP Morgan or Bank of America or Wells Fargo rolls out a marketing plat or a marketing push that says, hey. We're gonna offer you Bitcoin custody services.
Come talk to your Wells Fargo financial advisor to learn more. Until I see that, this entire SAB one twenty one thing is just pissing in the wind. So I'm waiting before I make any conclusions whatsoever about the the concrete ramifications of the rescission of s a b one twenty one, then it's just a dream we're just living in a dream world. Now that said, I want to say something about the strategic Bitcoin reserve. Under if it is installed by an executive order, that executive order, as we know, is easily rescinded by another executive order from the next president that sits in that chair, and that's just four short years away.
Now if they're like, you know, hey. I like Trump, and I like what he I like what he did. Well, then chances are good it would stay around. But if it was if it's like another Obama acolyte or, you know, Clinton acolyte or something like that, that's probably gonna go away unless it is so wildly successful, which it probably would be, that only an idiot would risk the rest of their political career by rescinding that. However, the problem is is that it can be done simply by another executive order wiping out the first executive order. So then what's the next step? Well, the next step is not the rescission of SAB one twenty one. No. No. No. No. It's senator Lummis' at the Bitcoin Reserve Act, the an actual law.
Well, in a lot of ways, I I structurally, I think that that's more impactful than the rescission of SAB one twenty one because SAB one twenty one was a staff accounting bulletin. It's not a law. It wasn't an executive order. It was like this internal memo that said, hey. We're at the SEC. We don't think that that bank should be able to custody, crypto assets without doing this. It wasn't ratified by congress. You know, it it was it was he didn't they they didn't you know, Gensler didn't walk up the hill or over to the White House to get something signed. They just did it. What's to say that the rescission of SAB one twenty one could not be resized itself in a reinstantiation of something like SAB one twenty one, and they'll call it SAB one twenty five.
Hey. If you're holding Bitcoin on the balance sheet for your customers, you better end up having to you know, you it's now gonna be a liability and not an asset, and you're gonna have to actually get cash to back that up. Well, for in in in my view, the Bitcoin reserve strategic Bitcoin reserve act or the Bitcoin reserve act or whatever senator Cynthia Lummis is calling it, that has a lot more teeth, in my opinion, than depending on the rescission of the SAB one twenty one to make any kind of hallmarks. And the second thing that I wanna say about the strategic Bitcoin reserve and this SAB one twenty one, and don't get me wrong, I I like the fact that SAB one twenty one is gone. I love it. It's great.
I don't trust it to hold because I don't trust anybody in this government to actually make a high quality decision that lasts any longer than a few years. That said, the states. It's the states, ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna get to a couple of them in the second part of the show, but it's the states' individual actions of creating their very own Bitcoin reserve for those states that nobody seems to be really looking at when it comes to what the hell is MicroStrategy doing with this preferred stock offering, plus what is going on with the rescission of SAB one twenty one, plus the EO on a strategic Bitcoin reserve, plus the Bitcoin reserve act if it goes through congress.
Everybody's looking at that. They're really not looking at what it means to have like, let's say one third of all the states of The United States end up with their own strategic Bitcoin reserve. Well, they're part of the federal government. I mean, I don't like the federal government, but they're part of the federal government. I I think I I I think we need to put a lot more weight on what the states are doing and put and weight that alongside the importance of the SAB one twenty one rescission, senator Lummis' Bitcoin Reserve Act, and possibly an executive order out of the Trump presidency. Actually, I I'm I'm gonna put that 1 as as important at the bottom of the list. It's really gonna be the Bitcoin Reserve Act, but and the SAB one twenty one, but the states.
It's really important to understand how important that is because at that point, the states themselves become way more financially sovereign than having to depend on the federal government. And since the states are underneath the umbrella of the federal government, the federal government itself is bolstered and emboldened by the fact that if if they don't hold it directly, they hold it through their vassal states. Again, not saying that that's a good thing, but I'm not gonna cry about it either. Now we're gonna go over to Europe, Eastern Europe, in fact, and where the Czech central bank governor has proposed, you guessed it, adding Bitcoin to reserves.
This is the central bank governor of Czech, I guess. So I used to call it we used to be able to call it Czechoslovakia, but, you know, Czech Republic and now Slovakia, Two different things. Anyway, I guess we'll call it the Czech Republic Central Bank governor. Right? Not the president of the Republic Of The Czech Republic, Not any of the the little little, you know, prefectures or whatever would be like the the subheadings of the Czech Republic. No. No. No. No. This is the central bank governor. So what is this dude saying? By the way, this is written by Omkar Omkar Godbull for CoinDesk. He says, Czech National Bank governor, Alice Mickle, said in an interview with the Financial Times that he will present a Bitcoin investment plan to the board tomorrow on Thursday, which, if approved, could see the Apex Bank diversify 5% of its $146,000,000,000 reserves into the leading cryptocurrency.
Wow. Quote, for the diversification of our assets, Bitcoin seems good, Michael said, according to an interview published by the Feet and quoted by Reuters. Michael pointed to broader investor interest in cryptocurrency since BlackRock and others debuted spot ETFs a year ago. Quote, an asset under consideration is Bitcoin. It currently has 0 correlation to bonds and is an interesting asset for a large portfolio worth considering. And right now, it's only at the stage of analysis and discussion. The bank board decides and no decision is imminent. Thoughtful analyst analysis is needed, end quote, Michael said in a statement on x.
And then he go and then he says, Bitcoin has significant volatility, which is sort of a cover your ass statement. But so now the Czech Republic central bank governor is proposing, Not not 1 of the underlings, not not the secretary, not 1 of the side governors, but, you know, like 1 of the head on shows, man, 1 of the 1 of the high ups is proposing to the board that 5% of their reserves go into Bitcoin. And that's the Czech Republic. See, this is what I don't understand about the European Union. How can you be so stupid and be neighbors with people who actually get it?
Man, I'm like I said, can you spell bribery? Is it spelled anything like corruption? Well, we'll find out, I guess. Anyway, here's here's Trump, who wants he he just is begging, please, please investigate me every single day of my presidency. And I don't get me wrong. I think it's actually funny. The I am not 1 of the people that are that is that is in the throes of Trump derangement syndrome. Right? I don't know him. I've never met him. I've never had a beer with him. I have literally no idea what the hell he's doing other than what the mainstream media tells me, and I stopped listening to those assholes years ago. So I literally don't know anything about Trump. The only way I know anything about anybody is if I go out and have a beer with him. And since I'm not gonna be having a beer with Trump anytime soon, I'm never gonna know what kind of person he actually is. And I refuse to listen to CNN, CNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, all that.
However, again, playing weatherman, I'm telling you that it's raining and how hard it's raining. Don't get pissed at me because I'm not for or against the rain. But from the block's R. T. Watson, we have this headline. Trump's media company launches truth dot phi, a financial technology company with crypto ambitions. Can you say conflict of interest? I can. Yeah. Like I said, hey. I'm just telling you that it's raining. This shit is going to make Elizabeth Warren her brain's just going to melt. But after she pulls her shit together, she's going to start yelling. That's what's gonna happen because US president Donald Trump's ambitions in the world of crypto took yet another leap on Wednesday as the billionaire politicians media company launched Truth.Fi.
Yeah. Truth.Fi. Like DeFi? Yeah. Truth dot Fi, a fintech brand that may invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and crypto related securities. Trump Media and Technology Group's board of directors has approved a financial services and financial technology strategy according to a press release, Quote, to diversify the company's cash and cash equivalent reserves of over $700,000,000 as of Dec. 31, 2024, the board has approved the investment of up to $250,000,000 The investment capital will be invested in traditional investment vehicles, separately managed accounts, exchange traded funds, quote, Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies or crypto related securities, End quote, the company also said.
Trump owns over 50% of Trump Media and Technology Group which operates the social media platform, Truth Social. The company filed a trademark application back in Nov. 0. The filing mentioned services for downloadable computer software for use as a digital wallet. Launching truth.5 follows Elon Musk's social media partnering partnering with Visa to help power, quote, x money. Oh my god. Yeah. I didn't bring that shit to you yesterday. Elon is partnering with with, yeah, Visa. Yeah. Anyway, it's a his x money is a digital payments project. And while x money has yet to launch or been mentioned as having aspirations in crypto, both Musk and Trump are both developing fintech ventures while the broader digital assets industry enjoys a bullish market.
Trump and Musk became close during the lead up to the presidential election, and Musk now leads, by himself, I might add, the recently created Department of Government Efficiency. Okay. So there's a couple of paragraphs more. We don't need to read them. There's no way there is no way that Trump's enemies aren't going to use this. In fact, this is see, this is what I wonder about. This is so blatant. It's so over the top as a conflict of interest. It clearly, clearly puts him in the crosshairs of any kind of, you know, potential ethics violation investigation that could be dreamed up by his enemies, which leads me to the question.
Why would you do something so blatantly obvious? Sure. There will be some of you out there that says, well, it's because he's a narcissist. He doesn't care. No. No. I think it's a trap. I I think it's a trap. I really do. And I don't know how it would spring, and I don't know the mechanism of the trap. I'm not that smart. I'm just saying, when I see something this blatant, I have to start wondering the first thing that I there's 2 things I wonder, and the first thing is, how can you be this blind to what will possibly what is probably going to happen?
And the next thing I think about is the fact that it is so blatant leads me to believe that you got something up your sleeve, And I'm falling into the second camp. I think this is a trap that he's laying. And like I said, I have literally no idea what the trap how it sprung, what kind of poison it has, what kind of bait. I mean, I know what the okay. I know what the bait is. I that's why I think it's a trap. This is bait. It's like the meme where the guys, you know, the card, you know, for Mad Max and he's pointing straight up and he's like, uh-uh. No. That that that's bait. Yeah. This is bait. Right? So I don't but I don't know is the trap lethal or is the trap designed to just keep somebody hanging close to a tree so you can go find them later and possibly either bribe them or just shoot them in the head like they you took them out behind the woodshed. It doesn't matter. Let's run the numbers.
CNBC futures and commodities oil taking it on the chin. 1 and a quarter to the downside for West Texas Intermediate past below $73. Brittnorssee down almost a full point to $76.79. Natural gas down a third to $3.45 per thousand cubic feet. Gasoline down a half to $2.04 a gallon, but gold is essentially moving sideways. Silver, however, is up a point and a half. Platinum is up damn near 2 points. Copper is up point 7%, and palladium is up 1 and a quarter. Everything in ag is looking in the green except for cotton and rough rice. Rough rice is the biggest loser of the day, point 4% to the downside.
Biggest winner is chocolate, 2.69% to the upside. But live cattle is down 1.1%, lean hogs are up a third, and feeder cattle are down just over a full point. Dow is down a quarter of a point. Nasdaq is down a half as is the S and P, and the S and P Mini is down point 14%. It's, you know, not a whole lot of moves. Can you imagine why? Because the FOMAC is meeting today. By the time you hear this, the decision as to what they're going to do with interest rates will have already been made. Everybody is betting they're going to keep rates the same, and I am betting along those lines as well. I do not think they will go up nor do I think federal reserve rates will go down. They will stay at 4.5% or whatever it is that they are at, but everybody is, you know, basically waiting for the decision to actually come down the pipe before they start making movements.
Bitcoin is at $102,940 a coin. That is $2,040,000,000,000,.00 of market cap, and you can get 37.4 ounces of the shiny metal rocks with your 1 Bitcoin, of which there are 19816626 and a quarter of an average fees per block are really low. I mean, really low. 0,.03 BTC taken in fees per block on average. And there are how many blocks? Oh, holy smokes. Ladies and gentlemen, there is only 18 blocks carrying 55000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear high priority rates of 4 Satoshis per vByte. Low priority is gonna get you in at three. And 787 exahashes per second is the one week rolling average on hash rate, which demonstrates the security of the Bitcoin blockchain. And from the razzle of Khan actually, the razzle of Khan. Razzle of Khan, I was thinking of the wrath of Khan, but whatever.
The Razzle of Khan, which was yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and I got pies with a thousand says thank you, sir. No. Thank you. D k black sheep with 500 satoshis doesn't say a damn word, but Lupin with another 500 says thank you, sir, once again. I'm always looking forward to your next episode. Keep rocking. By the way, from what I know, Plebeian would be pronounced as follows in ancient Rome, see and then he gives a link to Plebeian's the Wikipedia entry. And it says, like English, play, but without the y, plus bay, plus an ending syllable and, pla wait. Play wait. Wait. Wait. Play, but without the y. Well, does that mean play or plaw?
Plawbayan? Plawbayan? Plawbayan? Plawbayan? I don't know. This isn't helping me. Anyway, he continues. But as Churchill once said, everybody has the right to pronounce 4 names as he chooses. I'm not you know, I kinda like Churchill. He's the guy that always told me if you're going through hell, don't stop. Good advice, honestly. Jay with 500 says, in the ALBE update, by card, they mean a dedicated section of the screen where you can import Nostra keys into the extension. Thank you, Jay. I appreciate that. BTC master with a 21 says all sats matter at all sats matter dot com. Buys. With a hundred says, thank you, sir. Dude, we already did that. Thank you. And that's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use. And if you thought the EU was stupid, we've got a little pocket of the EU. Well, actually, no. It's no longer the EU. Used to be. But there's a little pocket in Europe. We won't call it the European Union right now because UK is not in. But there's a little pocket of Europe that is even more stupid because the United Kingdom government is going to sell or says that they may sell $630,000,000,0.0 in Bitcoin to balance public finances.
Woo hoo hoo. I need I need a cuckoo clock, sound effect going on here, man. According to the daily mail, The UK may sell $630,000,000,0.0 worth of Bitcoin that it acquired through judicial seizures to address a $25,000,000,000 shortfall in public finances. So they wanna sell the greatest asset ever to fix a short term funding gap that they have that was brought about by their own stupidity, but they'll only fix it this 1 time, and then they will have no ammunition to fix the next time. And there will be a next time because the same stupidity that got them in this place in the first place is going to hang around with them like an albatross around the neck of Dracula on the fucking deck of that goddamn ghost ship that he sailed over to London. I'm telling you, these people will never ever learn. And there's no amount of Bitcoin that they can steal.
There's no amount of Bitcoin that they can buy, leverage, or do anything with that's going to fix being stupid. The wallet in question reportedly holds 61,245 Bitcoin largely originating from a case involving a Chinese national named John Wynne linked to a multibillion dollar money laundering scheme. Chris Ethereington, oh, what an unfortunate name, a partner at RSM Accounting supports the sale. Quote, there's a strong case for selling the Bitcoin right away. Jee jeeves. Let's sell our Bitcoin right away. The currency is too volatile. It's too speculative, end quote.
However, the situation is not so straightforward. Germany's experience serves as a warning because, you know, if you remember, last July 0, the country sold around 50,000 Bitcoin for $2,880,000,000,.00, an amount that would be worth over $5,000,000,000 today. Opponents, including the Bitcoin policy lobbying group, have warned of potential negative consequences of such a sale. The UK Crown Prosecution Service is currently seeking court authorization to retain control of the seized Bitcoins ahead of a possible sale. However, any proceeds may not be fully allocated to the treasury as compensation for victims and recovery costs also must be considered. If if I was if I was 1 of the people that in what that last paragraph is talking about, the people that lost their money due to this, quote, unquote, Chinese national Jan wins Ponzi scheme or money laundering scheme. Right? Okay. So let's say I'm a creditor. Like, somehow I've lost my money, my Bitcoin, to this idiot, and the UK wants to sell it.
I want to sue the UK for not giving me back my Bitcoin. If they were to sell into the open market and then wait for god only knows how long to actually give me my cash back so that I can go rebuy the damn Bitcoin. If they were to do that and I was a creditor, I would want to launch a class action lawsuit. I want the Bitcoin. Because you're too stupid to hold it. You're too stupid to understand what it is. The fact that you've got a $25,000,000,000 shortfall, and you wanna sell $630,000,000,0.0 to and you're not even gonna clear the debt, And that debt's gonna end up rolling over, and it's going to erase whatever that $630,000,000,0.0 that you put into it over the next three years because you're going to remain stupid.
So there's all manner of shit that's wrong with this. And why The UK cannot get their collective shit together about farming, finance, and Bitcoin is fucking beyond me. It's embarrassing to watch. It is embarrassing. Oh my god. It's it's this this level of stupidity is not trivial. But back over in The United States where we may actually be getting our collected shit together, who knows? We'll have to watch. We have states of the union starting to at least display a level of intelligence. Martin Young, Cointelegraph, Utah.
The Utah House Committee has passed the bill for state to buy crypto. Okay? It's not Bitcoin, but you gotta take the win where you can get it, y'all. Utah House Committee has passed. Passed. They've read it. They've commented on it, and they've passed a bill that would allow the state to invest a portion of public funds into crypto with the measure now heading to the house for a vote. The Utah House Economic Development Committee passed HB two thirty, the Blockchain and Digital Innovation Amendments, by a 8 to 1 vote yesterday, January.
Proposed the bill on January. It would give the state's treasurer authority to allocate up to 5%, just like over there in The Czech Republic, of certain public funds to buy qualifying digital assets such as those with a market cap over $500,000,000,000 or approved stablecoins. The second substitute version of the original bill was updated on January with provisions for crypto mining zoning restrictions. The bill will now head to the full house where it will need majority approval both there and in the state senate before it can be given to the governor to either sign or veto.
A total of 12 United States states, including Utah's neighboring states of Arizona and Wyoming, have introduced bills wait a minute. Wait. Hold on here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was like, my my my, US geography just flew out the window with wings. Neighboring states, Arizona and Wyoming, have introduced bills giving their local treasuries permission to buy cryptocurrencies according to Bitcoin Reserve Monitor. Satoshi Action Fund cofounder and CEO, Dennis Porter, said on Twitter that Utah is the second state in The United States to pass a similar bill out of the committee. That's important. Everything else is being looked at. These are actually ready to roll to either house or senate floors for actual voting. It's it is we're moving, y'all. We're moving. Quote, while Utah is the eleventh state to introduce similar legislation, we will be the first to pass it. Tuscher posted on Twitter on January.
Bill would require the state's digital assets to be held either through secure custody, qualified custodians, or exchange traded products. It also allows the treasurer to engage in staking and lending of crypto assets under specific conditions. I I highly recommend that the state treasurer of Utah not make loans. I'm I don't know. This has gotta be a typo. But you wanna talk about a liability that you don't wanna have any part of as a state of The United States, yeah, making loans probably not the best way to go about that shit. Anyway, the legislation would also prohibit state and local governments from restricting the acceptance of crypto assets as payment for legal goods and services.
The bill, which still needs approval from Utah governor Spencer Cox, is scheduled to take effect on May if passed. Cox appears to be pro crypto, having signed a bill to create a blockchain and digital innovation task force three years ago in 2022. Meanwhile, South Dakota representative Logan Manhart also supports the concept of a state Bitcoin stockpile. And guess what? That's next up in the news from Decrypt.co, South Dakota seeks to establish their own Bitcoin reserve as more states join the trend. This Maya v, again writing for Decrypt. South Dakota, home of Mount Rushmore, is expected to begin debating a bill that seeks to add Bitcoin to its own financial reserves.
Quote, I am proud to say I will be bringing a bill in the South Dakota house that would create a strategic Bitcoin reserve, not crypto. Actually says, end quote, strategic Bitcoin reserve. Logan Manhart, South Dakota sent state representative wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, now is 1 of the few chances government has at being proactive. You mean state governments. A time frame for when the bill would be introduced into the state's house of representatives was not provided, Decrypt has reached out to learn more about the timing and details of the bill. The state level push for Bitcoin reserves is closely tied to Trump's pro crypto stance, which has led to renewed interest in integrating bitcoin into US financial policy.
Now South Dakota's move comes as at least a dozen other states plan to introduce or have already proposed similar legislation including Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Arizona. Pennsylvania was 1 of the earliest to introduce a proposal in followed by Florida, then Texas, and then Ohio in Dec. 0. More states have joined the effort with North Dakota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Wyoming, and Utah submitting Bitcoin reserve proposals in And Arizona has gone 1 step further, approving the first leg of a Bitcoin reserve bill in its legislature that will allow up to 10% of public funds to be allocated should it pass.
The group, led by White House Crypto and AI czar, will assess the reserve's feasibility alongside other crypto related policies, and they're talking about Trump and his EO talking about that work group on crypto. And god only knows what those guys are doing over there. But be it as it may, Sachs has recently commented on the possibility of a Bitcoin reserve stating, quote, yeah, we're gonna evaluate that. We have not decided to do it yet, but, yeah, we need to study that, end quote. Wow. Yeah. These guys see, this is why I'm more concerned they're not concerned. This is why I'm more much more excited about individual states of The United States just doing it themselves.
Because this Sachs guy is a blowhard shit coiner. Alright? He may be crypto friendly, but he is a shit coiner all the way. It's it's shit coin all the way down with this guy. Right? And and I love this statement. Yeah. We're gonna evaluate that. We have not decided to do it yet, but we need to study that. Okay. Well, I thought Trump said that he was gonna do it, that there was going to be a strategic Bitcoin reserve. And now I got the crypto and AI's are going, well, yeah, maybe. See, this is the kind of bullshit I can't stand. And I don't care what camp it comes from. Blue, red, purple, green, I don't give a shit.
Make a fucking decision, dude. Anyway, with Trump's administration actively supporting crypto adoption, expectations are high that more states and even other nations will follow suit. And meanwhile, countries such as Brazil, Japan, Poland, and Russia are exploring similar reserve strategies as Bitcoin's role continues to rise on the global financial stage. We must not forget the Czech Republic, which is something for whatever reason I don't know why I'm really excited about. And to end it off Paradigm and EFF rally behind Tornado Cash's Roman Storm amid legal battle. This is Vismeia v, again, riding from decrypt again.
Tornado Cash cofounder Roman Storm's cause has drawn support from the likes of venture capital firm Paradigm and the Electronic Frontier Foundation as he faces prosecution in The US for allegedly facilitating money laundering through the Ethereum based crypto mixer. Paradigm announced that it would donate, get this, 1 and a quarter million dollars to support Roman Storm's legal defense, while the EFF has filed an amicus brief in support of the developer. Announcing the contribution to Storm's legal fund, Paradigm cofounder Matt Huang called the charges an attack on software developers. Quote, the prosecution's case threatens to hold software developers criminally liable for the bad acts of third parties, which would have a chilling effect in crypto and beyond, Matt Huang wrote in a tweet.
Acknowledging Paradigm's contribution, Storm expressed his enormous gratitude to the VC firm in a tweet. He added that, quote, your support means the world not just to me, but to every developer fighting for fairness and innovation. Thank you for believing in me and defending the principles that matter. End quote. Civil Liberty's nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, the EFF, meanwhile, has filed an amicus brief in support of Storm warning that his prosecution could stifle privacy focused software development. Quote, the EFF pointed out that holding developers responsible for how their tools are used is an overreach.
Comparing privacy protocols like Tornado Cash to physical cache or encryption tools that serve legitimate purposes, but can also be misused, the EFF wrote. It added, quote, the government's prosecution raises larger civil liberties concerns that could chill the future of development of privacy enhancing technologies more broadly. It also criticized the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in the case, saying that laws regulating such technologies should be enacted by Congress, not through broad interpretations of existing sanctions laws.
In 0 charged Tornado Cash Founders Roman Storm and Roman Seminar with money laundering, sanctions violations, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Storm's trial is set for April 2025, and the outcome of his case could have far reaching implications for financial privacy and software development. The case comes amid shifting legal ground for Tornado Cash. In Sept. 0, a New York court denied Storm's motion to dismiss his charges stating that while parts of Tornado Cash were immutable, other aspects remained under developer control. Alright. So the EFF files this amicus brief.
And for those of you and my reaction might mirror what some of you just said to yourself when I said Amicus brief. Why didn't they give them money? Because the EFF doesn't have that much money. I you know, all all of what they do, that's that's money that they have to go out and fight for themselves. So I'm not really all that concerned about it. However, what I'm concerned about with the EFF Foundation and their amicus brief is that they kept talking about how this could impact privacy preserving financial software. Instead of going for the throat and saying, this threatens every software developer in The United States and abroad because how like, think of non financial software tools that could be used to do malice, misfeasance, malfeasance.
I'll bet you I'll bet you there's a lot of them, and none of them have anything to do with dollar dollar bills, yo. There's all kinds of software. Did somebody get hurt mentally to the point that they could prove in a court of law that they were mentally just just horribly wounded on Twitter, okay. Well, then guess what? Your software development team could have problems. Facebook software development team could have problems. It has nothing at all to do with financial bullshit. If Roman Storm gets convicted on what he's getting convicted on, the civil liberties that are at risk are everybody's civil liberties, not just people that develop financial privacy software. And that's what they missed in the amicus brief. That's my opinion.
And, no, I'm not a lawyer. And, no, I've never written an amicus brief myself. But I can tell you this, I'm right. I'm right. They should have made it way more broad. They should have brought the full gamut of software development being under fire into this amicus brief rather than narrowing to a laser beam focus just those situations that impact people that are building code for financial privacy. I think that they did accident and I don't think they meant to do it. I think it's an oversight. I hope nobody notices. I I really I I mean, the people that matter, I hope that that they don't know, like the judges and lawyers. And I hope that they just say, see, man, we and I hope Roman Storm gets off.
But, man, that amicus brief just it seems way too focused. It seems way too narrow. Still, though, I pray to God that Roman storm gets off because this is all bullshit. Everything that we see like, most of the stuff that we saw today is a bunch of government like, the EU and The UK basically just flushing their citizenry's future down the toilet because of reasons, because of corruption, because of bribery. The fact that Jeremy Allaire's circle stablecoin is the only thing that Micah seems to like leads me to believe that Jeremy Allaire has bribed the European Union. Probably went over to Brussels and, like I said, dropped a brick of coke and about a limousine full of hookers on him, and all of a sudden Tether goes away from Europe.
This is not going to end well, not just for Europe and not just for Circle itself, and it's not gonna end up well for the whole thing gets gets affected. The corruption that you're going to see from government elected bodies to nongovernment organizations all the way down to, like, I don't know, city councilmen. The corruption you're going to see is going to be eye watering, is going to just make everything that we've seen beforehand look like a cakewalk. The level of shit coinery hasn't even been thought of in the wildest of imaginations.
Because we keep thinking, oh, it's gonna be like, you know, a whole bunch of people are gonna release a whole bunch of shit coins. And even I am not being very intelligent in my imagination when I say it's going to be a whole field of stable coins that are going to rip you off. I I barely even my my 4 neurons in my head are barely even functioning at an imaginative level when I say shit like that. We have no idea of what level of shit coinery we're going to see. Because now shit coinery, like the cancer that it is, is going to metastasize into something that very much does not look like a tumor you can go in and surgically remove. No. No. No. No. It's in the bloodstream now, brother.
That shit can land anywhere. It is off in the 4 winds. It's like fucking pollen. It's like like like dandelion seeds blowing in the wind, man. And everywhere it lands, it's going to cause utter destruction and the complete capture of people's wealth, especially the people that can't afford at all to have their wealth taken from them. It pains me to say it, but the EU is it's it's gone. It may still look like the EU, but if you're living in the EU, if you're living in France, I'd prepare to be French again. If you're living in Spain, I'd prepare to be Spanish again. If you're living in England, prepare to be English again. Well, you're you guys already did that. You're already out of the EU. But for the rest of the EU, you might as well start figuring out how you're not really European Union citizens.
You've always been Norwegian. You've always been a German. You've always been English. You've always been French. You've always been Spanish. Embrace it because you're going to have to because the EU is fucking over. This kind of shit is it's just it's sad. It really is. Okay. So, prayers go out to Roman storm. It's it's great that the EFF wrote the amicus brief. It's really great that the VC firm gave 1 and a quarter million dollars of cash. That is amazing, and God knows that team needs that money. I'll see you on the other side.
[01:07:46] 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 Michael Saylor's Preferred Stock Offering
Crypto.com Delisting Tether and Other Tokens
MICA Regulations and Their Impact
USDT Delistings and Market Dynamics
State-Level Bitcoin Reserves in the US
