Join me today for Episode 1058 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- FED Keeps Rates Steady; Dove Speak
- Tether is 7th Largest Buyer of US Treasuries
- From $10K to $200, Financial Surveillance and You
- North Carolina's 2nd Bitcoin Bill
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https://cointelegraph.com/news/tether-becomes-7th-largest-us-treasury-holder-stablecoin-growth
https://decrypt.co/310745/treasury-financial-surveillance-cash-transactions-crypto
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/pakistan-plans-to-legalise-bitcoin-and-crypto
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https://atlas21.com/north-carolina-bill-proposed-to-invest-950-million-in-bitcoin/
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/takes/if-congress-wants-to-be-pro-bitcoin-then-act-like-it
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[00:00:02]
David Bennett:
It is 08:33AM Pacific Daylight Time. It is the March 2025. This is episode ten fifty eight of bitcoin. And we'll jump in. The fed held interest rates steady yesterday and they still see two cuts coming this year. Two. Not one. Not zero. The fed themselves is saying two cuts. Kind of interesting. So let's get into this one. This is actually from CNBC. It's written by Jeff Cox. The federal reserve, in a closely watched decision on Wednesday, held the line on benchmark interest rates, though still indicated that reductions are likely later in the year.
Faced with pressing concerns over the impact tariffs will have on a slowing economy, the rate setting Federal Open Market Committee kept its key borrowing rate targeted in the range between 4.254.5% where it has been since December. Markets have been pricing in virtually, you know, zero chance of a move at this particular week's two day policy meeting. And along with the decision, officials updated their rate and economic projections for this year and through 2027 and altered the pace of which they are reducing bond holdings. But despite the uncertain impact of president Donald Trump's tariffs as well as an ambitious fiscal policy of tax breaks and deregulation, officials said that they still see another one half percentage point of rate cuts through the year 2025.
The Fed prefers to move in quarter percentage point increments, so that would mean two, count them, one, two reductions this year. And investors took encouragement that further cuts would be ahead with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising more than 400 points following the decision. Risk on, baby. However, in a news conference, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said the central bank would be comfortable keeping interest rates elevated if conditions warranted it. Quote, if the economy remains strong and inflation does not continue to move sustainably towards 2%, we can maintain policy restraint for longer. If the labor market were to weaken unexpectedly or inflation were to fall more quickly than anticipated, we can ease policy accordingly.
Alright. That's what we really needed to know. Those two those two sentences from Jerome Powell is everything we needed to know, especially the second one. If the labor market were to weaken unexpectedly or inflation were to fall more quickly than anticipated, we can ease policy accordingly. And that means easing the interest rate. And that means money is easier to borrow to, you know, pile into riskier assets such as equities and or Bitcoin. And so that's one of the reasons we saw a price rise yesterday in Bitcoin was because the Fed kept rates the same, and Jerome Powell had dovish language. That's the important part. That last statement from Jerome about the labor market, that's actually a dovish statement. This is kinda like the first time we've heard that much of dovishness out of the Fed in quite a while, so markets are reacting accordingly.
Now when we will get those rate cuts, I don't know. And and, also, we don't know what the future holds. Some weird shit can happen, and we won't see those rate cuts, and we may just be crab walking along with the S and P and the Nasdaq and the Dow forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Who knows? Who knows? All I do know is that until until Trump makes a decision about tariffs and actually installs them, this crap is gonna go on for a while. And I'm not really blaming Trump. I'm just this is the way he negotiates. Right? He he makes everything uncertain around everybody that would be considered a stakeholder in any negotiation that he's ever gonna have, and then he provides a way out. Right? Even if it doesn't have to be a good way out, it just has to be some way out so that confusion can be stalled.
And the reason that that's an important negotiation tactic, especially for someone like Trump, is that it makes people uncomfortable when they're confused, and nobody likes being uncomfortable. So if you sow, you know, if you sow a realm of confusion and uncomfortableness around a whole bunch of people, and then all of a sudden you say, you know, I can make this a whole shitload less uncomfortable if you kinda get on board with what I wanna do. And then all of a sudden, even like I said, even if it's a bad way to go, at least it's a way out. And nobody likes discomfort, no matter if they're wearing a Brooks Brothers suit or a $10 pair of Walmart sneakers. Nobody cares.
Now moving on, Zoltan Vardai out of Cointelegraph says that Tether's US Treasury holdings has surpassed Canada and Taiwan and now ranks seventh globally. This is a company. This is not a nation state. This is Tether. They rank number seven in United States Treasury Holdings. Wow, brother. Tether. The hundred and $43,000,000,000 stablecoin giant, was the world's seventh largest buyer of United States treasuries, surpassing some of the world's largest countries. Tether, the issuer of Tether, USDT, the world's largest stablecoin, was the world's seventh largest treasury buyer surpassing Canada, Taiwan, Mexico, Norway, Hong Kong, and numerous other countries. I find it fascinating that they're calling Hong Kong a country because it's not. It's now part of China. We we screwed that up, but whatever.
The stablecoin issuer acquired over $33,100,000,000 worth of treasuries compared to over 100,000,000,000 purchased by the Cayman Islands, which apparently is in the first place in global rankings according to Paulo Ardoino, the, CEO of Tether. Quote, Tether was the seventh largest buyer of US treasuries in 2024 compared to whole countries, are wrote Ardoino in a March 20 Twitter post. However, Luxembourg and the Cayman Island figures include all the hedge funds buying entity bills, noted Ardoino in the replies, whereas Tether's figures represents the investments of a singular entity.
Tether is investing in US treasuries as additional backing assets for its US dollar peg stablecoin since treasuries are short term debt securities issued by the United States government and are considered some of the safest and most liquid investments available. Yeah. Unless you're a bank and they crash the interest or the the interest rates start to rise and the, the the principal amount or the face value of the bonds crash and all of a sudden you've gotta liquidate because you don't have the holdings to back, you know, all the customers that go to your bank, and then next thing you know, you get taken over by the FDIC. Yeah. I I'm not sure how safe United States treasuries are right now. They certainly haven't been over the last three years, but whatever. Tether's significant growth comes during a period of growing stablecoin adoption among both investors and US Lawmakers.
The growing stablecoin supply recently surpassed 219,000,000,000 and continues to rise, suggesting that the market is likely still, quote, mid cycle as opposed to the top of the bull run according to into the block analysts. US lawmakers are on track to pass legislation setting rules for stablecoins and cryptocurrency market structure by August, Kristin Smith, CEO of industry advocacy group, The Blockchain Association, said during Blockworks twenty twenty five. Smith's timeline echoes a similar forecast by Beau Hines, the executive director of the president councils of advisors on digital assets who said on March 18 that he expects to see comprehensive stablecoin legislation in the coming months. Quote, I think we're close to being able to get those done for August.
They're doing a lot of work. Oh, that's a lot of work. On the behind the scenes right now, Smith said on March 19 at the summit, which Cointelegraph attended. Quote, I'm optimistic when you have the chairs of the relevant committees in the house and the senate and the White House that want to do something, and you've got bipartisan votes in congress to get it there. Yeah. Do something. Somebody do something. Won't somebody think of the stablecoin children? Yeah. I'm telling you, do not don't don't just stick your fingers in your ears about this. You hate stablecoins.
I get it. They're not going anywhere. It's like altcoins. It's like the poor and what Jesus said about the poor. The idiots will always be with you, and I'm not talking about Jesus calling the poor idiots. I'm talking about us right now. If I'm some kind of messiah and I'm walking around in some kind of robe with some freaking Jerusalem cruisers on and somebody asked me about stablecoins and altcoins and shitcoins, I would say the dipshits will always be with you. You're not getting rid of them. You're not getting rid of these people. And second, again, and this is the most important thing, I think, for the next five to ten years minimum, Tether, leading the forefront, and other stablecoins are going to be purchasing the money that The United States prints and exporting that potential poverty to the rest of the world. Why do I call it potential poverty?
As The United States prints money, and Tether, and people like them, buy those treasuries, they print more stablecoin, diluting the amount of stablecoin already on the market. Right? So then that stablecoin gets used in places like Africa and Central America and South America and god only knows where. And yet every time Tether buys more treasuries, they create more stablecoin. It's just fiat. That's all it there's nothing stable about a stablecoin. It's inflation coin. It's be it's digital fiat coin. That's all this shit is. So this is how The United States extends its ability, at least in the mid to short term, five to ten years out, of being able to to still even after all the shit that the world has seen go on with the United States government and their fiscal mismanagement, being able to still export inflation around the world, stealing not only from their own citizenry, but everybody else's citizenry as well.
Be aware, people. That shit's going to happen. Circle p is open for business. Peony Lane Vineyards. You want some wine? Do you want it made by a pleb? Well, this pleb, Justin, he's got this place called Peony Lane Vineyards, and he makes his own wine. And it's high altitude grapes grown in Northwestern Colorado. And he makes some really, really fabulous colored wines. I haven't tasted them, but every single person I see that get gets his wine writes him back on Nostra or Twitter and says how wonderful it is. And I haven't actually seen anybody write back saying this is crap. So I'm just going to make a giant assumption that Peony Lane Vineyards makes high quality wines.
Now if you want to pay for Bitcoin, you can do that. You go to peonylanewine.com. That's peonylanewine.com. P e 0 n y lane wine Com. Peony lane wine Com, and you will be able to select the option to pay in Bitcoin. And if you're not selling your goods and services like a good pleb for Bitcoin, then you're not in the circle p. If you do buy wine from Peony Lane Vineyards, make sure you tell them you heard it about here on the circle p on the Bitcoin and podcast. And maybe, just maybe, Justin will cut me some satoshis for this value for value advertising that he didn't have to pay for upfront. I'm doing this simply because I like seeing plebs successful.
I want to see plebs that are making something that makes their heart soar and be able to sell it and make a living by it. But none of us have the money for a Madison Street advertising agency or marketing agency. We're all poor because we learned, you know, how to fun have how to have fun staying poor. Right? Okay. Now the treasury has expanded financial surveillance of cash transactions. Shit. I didn't even hear about well, I'm sure I heard about this, but I forgot about it. If I forgot about it, I'm pretty sure some of you out there forgot about it too. So this is the reminder from decrypt and Liz Napolitano who says that the Treasury Department, and this is in The United States, has issued an order ramping up surveillance of financial transactions worth as little as $200.
Yeah. If so you you buy let's say you buy a box set of of cream, you know, like Eric Clapton's old band from the seventies. Box set, man. And it's like vintage. It's still like, it it's never been opened before. You're gonna pay more than $200 for a box set of every every album that Cream ever recorded. You're gonna pay more than $200. I guarantee it if it's in mint condition. Yeah. Treasury tracked it. They wanna know that you bought a box of cream. I'm just saying, man. Anyway, questions have abounded over whether the directive could be broadly applied beyond cash to crypto transactions as well, but experts told Decrypt digital asset owners shouldn't be alarmed. Oh, thank god. Although the order raises concerns over Americans' financial privacy rights, it does not apply to people sending and receiving digital assets through platforms such as Coinbase. Quote, there are crypto firms that are licensed and treated as money service businesses.
The order starts with cash, so it looks like this only targets Western Union type businesses, CoinCenter Communications director, Naresh Agrawal, told Decrypt. The temporary order issued last Friday by FinCEN calls for money service businesses in 30 ZIP codes across California and Texas to report cash transactions over $200 down from the standard 10,000 reporting threshold. They went from 10,000 to 200. Why? I don't know. Such reporting would entail the name, address, and Social Security number of the individual initiating the transaction, the amount and the type of money being exchanged, and the recipient, and the purpose of the transaction.
The directive, which will affect more than 1,000,000 people, aims to combat the significant risk to The United States financial system of the cartels, drug traffickers, and other criminal actors along the Southwest Border. Oh, yeah. Like, that's not gonna work, dude. Secretary of the sky of the treasury Scott Bessette said in a March 11 statement, money laundering through money orders, wire transfers, and other services offered by, you know, Western Union style businesses serves as a crucial financial lifeline for drug cartels, enabling organized crime to continue operating and profiting from illegal activities that often promote violence and corruption in communities along The United States Mexico border.
But immigrants and unbanked individuals also rely on those same services using them to send remittances, pay household bills, and, you know, settle debts. While monitoring transactions processed by money services businesses, in some border towns might help thwart drug cartel activities, any potential upside of the order will come at the expense of some pretty severe intrusions into normal people's lives. That's according to Nick Anthony, a policy analyst at libertarian think tank Cato Institute, quote, this is going to affect folks on the lower end of the income spectrum who frequently use these kinds of alternative financial services. People who thought they had a sense of financial privacy are going to quickly find out that they don't and that the government can actually conduct sweeping surveillance at a moment's notice, end quote.
And although crypto firms don't have to comply with the order, the new rules should alarm digital asset hodlers and anyone else who advocates for financial autonomy and the right to conduct one's business away from the watchful eye of the federal government. Quote, this is gonna be pretty harsh wake up call for a lot of people that the fourth amendment does not work the way many think. Anthony said that the or added that the US Treasury's temporary order, which could later be extended, nothing nothing is more permanent than a United States temporary order. Remember 1971 when Nixon took us temporarily off the gold standard? Yeah. This ain't ever going away. Anyway, it effectively encourages businesses to report transactions that fall below the new $200 threshold. Shit. I'm not gonna be able to buy a piece of gum after a while without having to give my Social Security number. This is ridiculous.
Money service businesses are requiring the law to flag anything, anything that looks like structuring or the act of breaking up large financial transactions into several smaller transactions to avoid said federal reporting requirements. So if a business suspects that a client is sending a hundred and $85 to avoid the $200 reporting threshold, it must file a report with the United States Treasury to flag the transaction and the individual who attempted it, Anthony explained. That opens up a whole separate problem where the $200 threshold really effectively becomes a $0 threshold.
The stringent surveillance rules, according to Anthony, could drive clients of Western Union and MoneyGram to crypto. This announcement will push people to look into alternatives, whether that be cryptocurrency or just something else, Anthony said. But, quote, it should be a decision that people are making solely on what fits them best, solely what fits their needs, and not because the other options are being effectively crushed. This is just bad. You know, every time I turn around, I'm like, oh, okay. Well, you know, the orange man said he was gonna, like, you know, be cool about all this kind of stuff. And he's not being cool about all this kind of stuff. This is ridiculous, and it needs to freaking stop. Maybe Pakistan knows something that we don't because Pakistan plans to legalize Bitcoin and crypto.
Vivek send Bitcoin, Bitcoin magazine. Pakistan unveils plans to legalize Bitcoin and crypto and implement a regulatory framework. Bilal bin Saqib, CEO of the Pakistan Crypto Council, told Bloomberg on Thursday that Pakistan has unveiled said plans to legalize Bitcoin and implement a regulatory framework to attract foreign investment and boost adoption. The government aims to devise clear regulations and align with international best practices. Pakistan's Finance Minister formed the PCC last week to steer the country's crypto strategy. Pakistan is done sitting on the sidelines regarding Bitcoin and crypto, Saqib told Bloomberg.
Quote, we want to attract international investment because Pakistan is a low cost, high growth market with 60% of the population being 30 years old. Quote, Trump is making crypto a national priority, and every country, including Pakistan, will have to follow suit, he said. This move comes amid a global shift in attitudes towards Bitcoin and crypto after The United States pushed for greater mainstream acceptance. The new stance is a stark change for Pakistan, which had previously banned crypto. But by embracing Bitcoin and crypto early, Pakistan is looking to position itself as a regional leader and attract investors.
Pakistan's central bank has expressed concerns earlier. However, the government seeks to mitigate risks through prudent legislation and clear rules could boost innovation and prevent potential abuse of decentralized networks, yada yada yada. Alright. What's so what's cool about this? Pakistan is India's enemy, and they live right next door to each other. So this was probably going to poke and prod India to getting even further into a pro Bitcoin stance. We'll have to see if that actually works. But, you know, even though Pakistan is much smaller than India, Pakistan is, as far as India is concerned, has never been anything to sneeze at.
They are have been and will continue to be more than a very large thorn in the side of India. India just they just cannot figure out how to win over the Kashmir region, which is essentially what Pakistan and India have been fighting about for decades. But now, see, now Pakistan's embracing Bitcoin. What does that do to India? Because India is going to listen to what Pakistan is doing. Not to mention the fact that Trump is starting to become pro Bitcoin and, you know, well, god, I hate to say it, but pro crypto. So India is a huge country. It had massive population.
It's not something to sneeze at, ladies and gentlemen. Let let's run the numbers. Futures and commodities. I got oil. West Texas Intermediate is up almost two full points today, back up to $68.40. Brent Norsee is up 1.72% to $72 flat. Natural gas, of course, moving the opposite direction, down four and a half percent to $4.05 per thousand cubic, and gasoline is up point 68% to $2.18 a gallon. Metals are mixed today. Gold, $3,047. That's after a fifth of a point rise. Silver, however, is down two thirds of a point. Platinum is down one and two thirds of a point. Copper is up, they have point 08%, and palladium is down over 1%.
Ag, let's see. Who's the biggest winner today? It's gonna be Sugar. 1.7% to the upside. Biggest loser is wheat. 1.3% to the downside. Live cattle are up point 12%. Lean hogs are up point 18%, but feeder cattle are down point 08%. And, yes, the equity markets are rallying because they got good news out of the Fed or at least some dovish talk. Dow is up a half a point. S and P is up point 38%. Nasdaq is up a half point, and the S and P Mini is up point 13%. And for a little bit, we were doing okay on Bitcoin. It got up to, like, 86,000, but now we've plunged back down to $84,760.
And since the equity markets didn't follow suit immediately, I'm assuming this was not caused by orange man saying the word tariff. But we still have a $1,680,000,000,000 market cap. We can get 27.6 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our one Bitcoin of which there are 19,839,307.2 of. And average fees per block are a little higher than yesterday, 0.04 BTC taken in fees on a per block basis, and there are 49 blocks carrying 20,000 unconfirmed transactions. But, wow, fees are a little high this morning. 7 whole Satoshis per vbyte, that's high priority, and it's the same for low priority.
Now for mining, we are dipped back down below 800 exahashes, and we are standing at 798.8 exahashes per second. So the security is strong with Bitcoin. And from the fog of stupid, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and and it man, I I brought you some fog. It's stupid right there from Western Europe. My god almighty. 21,000 or not 21,000. Two thousand one hundred. Yeah. Wishful thinking. From and I don't know who it's from. I can't I I can't see. See. But it says, continue the good work bringing us fellow plebs the news. Yes, sir. Will do. Oak Grove with 1,056 says, I missed boosting the last show.
Good news. Halana Diaz, the director slash creator of the documentary, Dirtycoin, had a showing at both South by Southwest and Bitcoin Takeover. That means she broke Bitcoin into South by Southwest for the first time. Oak Grove, thank you for that news. That's that's actually good news. It's about damn time the people over at South by Southwest figured out that they are on the losing side of innovation. I mean, money. Dude, you can tell me about the newest flat screen TV all day long if you want to, but that's not gonna really change my life. Money. That's where the technology is going. Perma nerd with two thirty four says, like Shishi 21 m Compre, this episode will cure a lot that ails you. I love how Perma Nerd is is mixing that in.
Psyduck with five sixty eight says, Psyduck. Yodel. 300. 10 trillion divided by 450,000,000 equals 22 k. That's savings per living person in the EU. Oh, okay. I have 10,000,000,000,000 by 450,000,000 for $22,000. They'd have to take okay. So I'm sure that yeah. I guess that that that does make sense. I'm I'm sure that there's probably a lot of people in Europe that have $22,000. And I'm not being facetious, Yodel. I'm actually kind of working this out. That would have to be everybody, though. But then again, you know, there's like, if you had half of those people had 44,000, euro and the other half had zero, you'd still end up with with 10,000,000,000,000. So I'm just gonna say, I feel bad for the people that are about to get their money stolen because it looks like the money that's going to be stolen is actually there.
Amazing. Doesn't make it any better, but it's still amazing. God's death February. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Augie Chute with a hundred sat says, when did you visit Europe last time? Augie I think Augie Chute is, like, really mad at me. Pies with a hundred says, thank you, sir. Hashtag 40 HPW. Oak Grove, for with another hundred sat says, forgot to boost for October. I have some good news. There is finally a crossover in South by Southwest. Praise the Lord. Oh, and then he goes talks about Joanna Diaz, in the documentary Dirty Coin. So I guess he did it from another spot. And that's it, man. That that that's the weather report.
Welcome to part two of the news that you can use starting out with president Trump addressing the digital assets summit. This is by Nick out of Bitcoin Magazine. President Trump is expected to deliver a speech tomorrow via a recording at BlockWorks Digital Asset Summit in New York City, and this will be the first time a US sitting president has addressed a Bitcoin and crypto conference highlighting the growing influence of digital assets and mainstream financial policy. We kinda covered this a little bit at the head of the show. Well, let's see what else they got to say about what Trump wants to go do. Trump said or Trump has previously engaged with the Bitcoin community, having spoken in person at the world's largest Bitcoin conference in Nashville.
Trump's upcoming address to the DAS comes only just a couple of weeks after moving forward with officially integrating Bitcoin into national strategy when he signed the executive order establishing The US strategic Bitcoin reserve. Joining the lineup for the DAS is strategy's Michael Saylor, of course, because he has to be in on everything, who will deliver a keynote speech and engage in a fireside chat with Bitcoin historian Pete Rizzo. Additionally, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seffert will host a panel discussion with BlackRock's head of digital assets, Robbie, Michnik, and Nasdaq's head of US equities and exchange, traded products, Gang Buoy, where they will delve into the evolving landscape of the Bitcoin ETFs and institutional adoption.
The announcement of Trump's participation follows remarks from Beau Hines, executive director on digital assets for president Trump. And see, is there anything of, he's just gonna be talk he's just talking, so and it looks like they've they've already been talking. So we'll just go ahead and leave this one to the birds and go on to North Carolina. North Carolina follows suit. They've proposed a bill to invest $950,000,000 into Bitcoin. This is out of Atlas twenty one, newsroom is who's writing it. So I don't know who the hell newsroom is, but, hope they wear pants.
A new proposal introduced in North Carolina would allow the state to make public investments in Bitcoin. Republican senators Todd Johnson, Brad Overcash, I like these names, and Timothy Moffitt have introduced a bill titled the North Carolina Bitcoin Reserve and Investment Act SB three twenty seven. That would authorize the state's treasurer office to allocate up to 10 of public state funds into Bitcoin. The percentage applied to the current general fund of 9,500,000,000.0 could result in a potential investment of around $950,000,000 And if approved, the bill would lead to the creation of a specific Bitcoin reserve managed by the state treasurer.
The bill stipulates that the acquired Bitcoin be stored in multi signature cold wallets and undergo monthly audits. Purchases would be made exclusively through regulated cryptocurrency exchanges based in The US, while the possibility of mining operations to increase the reserves would also be explored. The proposal establishes restrictions on the use of the reserve requiring approval from two thirds of both chambers of the general assembly for any liquidation of Bitcoin. Permitted uses include, one, response to major financial crises. Two, funding of critical infrastructure, three, support for Bitcoin research and education, and four, collateral for bonds for public projects.
So munis, municipal bonds. A Bitcoin economic advisory board composed of industry experts would provide ongoing advice while the treasurer would be required to submit quarterly reports on the reserve's status and performance. SB three twenty seven marks the second bill. Oh, second bill for a strategic Bitcoin reserve introduced in North Carolina. Last month, representatives Destin Hall and Mark Brody along with Steve Ross introduced the NC Digital Asset Investment Act or House Bill 92, which would allow the state treasurer to invest up to 10% of state funds in digital assets with a minimum market capitalization of $750,000,000,000.
House bill 92, passed the first reading on February, and then was referred to the committee on pensions and retirement earlier this month for further review, and we don't have any other news on where house bill 92 actually stands right now. But a second bill in North Carolina, this is good news, man. And that's originating in the senate, whereas the first bill originated in the house of representatives. So both the house and the senate are jumping on the gravy train, man. Everybody wants to get in on this one. Okay.
This one's an important one out of Shinobi from Bitcoin Magazine. If congress wants to be pro Bitcoin, then act like it. This is this is about more than you think, and it's it's this is kinda critical. We need to do this. It's recently come to my attention that multiple United States Congressmen have taken very public pro Bitcoin stances, but they're not aware of the currently unfolding prosecution of samurai wallet developers, Keone Rodriguez and William Hill. This is simply mind boggling to me as a Bitcoiner. The current legal prosecution of the samurai team as well as the relevant prosecutions against Roman Sterlingov accused of operating the Bitcoin mixer called Bitcoin Fog and Roman Storm and Roman Simonov, which are two developers behind Tornado Cash, are the most important legal cases impacting sovereign and private uses of Bitcoin on the docket today.
Roman Sterlingov is sitting in jail right now after a conviction attained with zero hard evidence whatsoever. His conviction was based on nothing more than unproven assertions by blockchain analysis company Chainalysis. The samurai and tornado cash developers are being prosecuted under money laundering legislation for developing, you know, purely self custodial software that in no circumstances in which their software could be used, gave them any control over any user funds. The fact that this is not only not on the radar of any congressman or congresswoman who claims to be pro Bitcoin but not being loudly talked about, it's absurd.
So let's do something to change that. I'm calling on every United States citizen reading this to take the form letter below, fill it in appropriately, and send it to your congressman or congresswoman, especially if you are in a district with a representative claiming publicly to be pro Bitcoin. Okay. And then the letter follows. And it's you just you can just, like, copy it. It it's in the article. Right? You just, like, highlight everything, copy it, paste it into whatever word processor you use, and fill out, like, your name, your address, city, state, ZIP code, email, phone number, date, name of the representative, you know, where they are, blah blah blah. And then it actually has the body of the letter, which I'm not going to read.
Because what I'm hoping that you do is that you go into the show notes for today's episode, and you find the URL that goes that links directly to this bitcoin.bitcoinmagazine.com article, and you read the letter yourself. Shinobi's already written the letter. And I, honestly, I don't think it's gonna matter if it's a form letter. If you if if they keep getting mail, if your representative or your senator or whatever, if you keep hammering them, they're going to start going, well, who's this Roman Sterlingov guy? Who's these these other Roman dudes? I mean, what's what's what's going on? They don't know. That's what Shinobi is saying is that they say that they're all about Bitcoin, but, dudes, they are just dipping their toes into the water.
This time last year, there was barely any senators or representatives really talking about it in a positive light anyway. Because the people that wanna talk about Bitcoin in a negative light, they don't care about the trials. If they did care about the trials, it's just ammunition for them saying, look, they're all criminals. I don't think these people that are on trial for tornado cash and Bitcoin, they're not in the samurai team. They're not criminals. They're they they wrote code. That's protected. That's a protected first amendment right. Now they're doing it in other countries, but this is seems to be all being persecuted in The United States.
So be that as it may, even if they are not of this origin, I'm not sure what legal right The United States would have to persecute somebody for freedom of speech even if their country of origin origin doesn't allow that, they're here, or they are being prosecuted here. So we why the courts aren't adhering to the first amendment right that code is free speech is beyond my capacity for understanding. And I'll bet you that it would be beyond the capacity for senators and house of representative guys to be like if they knew what was going on, they would be like, wait a minute. Code is free speech. And and when you copy this letter, maybe you should say that. By the way, in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, it was found that writing software is protected free speech under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of The United States.
That should probably be in here. Anyway, go get the letter, sign it, give them your address. Who gives a shit? I mean, at one point or another, we gotta fight. Right? Right. Now beware of cracked TradingView. Do you use TradingView? I do. I don't use it to trade. It's not connected to any of my bank accounts. I don't have a credit card. I just use it to look at charts, which is why I feel good, but I feel bad for the other people because check this shit out from Steven Kotti, Cointelegraph. Beware of cracked trading view. It's a crypto stealing trojan, as if we needed one more thing to worry about.
Cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes has warned of a new form of crypto stealing malware hidden inside a cracked version of TradingView Premium, software that provides charting tools for financial markets. The scammers are lurking on crypto reddits posting links to Windows and Mac installers for TradingView Premium Cracked, which is laced with malware aimed at stealing personal data and draining crypto wallets, Jerome Segura, a senior security researcher at Malwarebytes, said in a March 18 post. Quote, we have heard of victims whose crypto wallets have been emptied and were subsequently impersonated by the criminals who sent phishing links to their contacts.
Oh, ugly. As part of the snare, the fraudsters claim the programs are free and have been cracked directly from their official version unlocking premium features. It actually contains not one but two malware programs, Luma Steeler and Atomic Steeler. Luma Steeler is an import information stealer that's been around since 2022 and primarily targets cryptocurrency wallets and two factor authentication browser extensions. Atomic Steeler was first discovered in April of twenty twenty three and is known for its ability to capture data such as administrator and keychain passwords. Besides TradingView Premium Cracked, the scammers have offered other fraudulent trading programs to target crypto traders on Reddit.
Segura said one of the interesting aspects of the scheme is that the scammer also takes the time to assist users in downloading the malware written software and help resolve any issues with the download. Well, that's with their best interest to provide quality customer service. Anyway, quote, what's interesting with this particular scheme is how involved the original poster is going through the thread and being helpful to users asking questions or reporting an issue, while the original post gives a heads up that you were installing these files at your own risk. Further on in the thread, we can read comments from the original poster.
The origin of the malware isn't clear, but Malwarebytes found that the website hosting the files belonged to a Dubai cleaning company, and the malware command and control server has been registered by someone in Russia roughly one week ago. Segura says that the crack software has been prone to containing malware for decades, but the lure of a free lunch is still very appealing. Common red flags to watch out for with these types of scams are instructions to disable security software so that the program can run and files that are password protected according to malware bytes. In this instance, Segura says the files are double zipped with the final zip being password protected.
For comparison, a legitimate executable would not need to be distributed in such fashion. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis reported in its 2025 crypto crime report that crypto crime has entered a professionalized era dominated by AI driven scams, stablecoin laundering, and efficient cyber syndicates. In the past year, the analytics firm estimates that there was, holy shit, $51,000,000,000 in illicit transaction volume. Oh my god. So for all you guys out there that were wishing that you had premium, trading view, just just pay for it. Just pay for it, man. Now there was a time, you know, was a time back in the day when things like LimeWire were still around.
You know, it's like right around the time that that Napster was gaining steam. I could go get cracked versions of AutoCAD, Maya, three d animation software package. You name it, dude. There was it it wasn't even as much as it was cracked. I mean, you know, some of them were cracked, but the majority of them, this was before license servers and, like, connected, you know, like, license servers being connected to the Internet or license servers being, quote, always on, and you had to your your program continuously had to ping a license server that was not on your own machine. This was before all of that.
And people just give you the CD key to Windows, to whatever. Like I said, like AutoCAD, especially back in the nineties, you know, it's expensive now. But you think it's expensive now? You should have seen AutoCAD a long time ago and what that shit cost. That was not fun, man. And if you wanted to use AutoCAD or you wanted to learn AutoCAD and how to work it, you either had to buy it or you had to go to school and buy an education to learn it because there was no such thing as an educational package. Your only option was to go find either the cracked version or the one with the CD key available, which is what I did.
I don't do that shit anymore because everything is dangerous. This is a demonstration of that. Now it's different. It's not, you know, innocent piracy anymore. It's this convoluted fog of stupid bullshit. Right? So be careful. The free lunch thing, it's it's never a good idea anymore. Back in the nineties, chances are good you were gonna be okay. Now just stay away from it. If for whatever reason you need the advanced features of TradingView, dude, just just buy it. Just buy it. Y'all be safe out there. I'll see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin, and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.
It is 08:33AM Pacific Daylight Time. It is the March 2025. This is episode ten fifty eight of bitcoin. And we'll jump in. The fed held interest rates steady yesterday and they still see two cuts coming this year. Two. Not one. Not zero. The fed themselves is saying two cuts. Kind of interesting. So let's get into this one. This is actually from CNBC. It's written by Jeff Cox. The federal reserve, in a closely watched decision on Wednesday, held the line on benchmark interest rates, though still indicated that reductions are likely later in the year.
Faced with pressing concerns over the impact tariffs will have on a slowing economy, the rate setting Federal Open Market Committee kept its key borrowing rate targeted in the range between 4.254.5% where it has been since December. Markets have been pricing in virtually, you know, zero chance of a move at this particular week's two day policy meeting. And along with the decision, officials updated their rate and economic projections for this year and through 2027 and altered the pace of which they are reducing bond holdings. But despite the uncertain impact of president Donald Trump's tariffs as well as an ambitious fiscal policy of tax breaks and deregulation, officials said that they still see another one half percentage point of rate cuts through the year 2025.
The Fed prefers to move in quarter percentage point increments, so that would mean two, count them, one, two reductions this year. And investors took encouragement that further cuts would be ahead with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising more than 400 points following the decision. Risk on, baby. However, in a news conference, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said the central bank would be comfortable keeping interest rates elevated if conditions warranted it. Quote, if the economy remains strong and inflation does not continue to move sustainably towards 2%, we can maintain policy restraint for longer. If the labor market were to weaken unexpectedly or inflation were to fall more quickly than anticipated, we can ease policy accordingly.
Alright. That's what we really needed to know. Those two those two sentences from Jerome Powell is everything we needed to know, especially the second one. If the labor market were to weaken unexpectedly or inflation were to fall more quickly than anticipated, we can ease policy accordingly. And that means easing the interest rate. And that means money is easier to borrow to, you know, pile into riskier assets such as equities and or Bitcoin. And so that's one of the reasons we saw a price rise yesterday in Bitcoin was because the Fed kept rates the same, and Jerome Powell had dovish language. That's the important part. That last statement from Jerome about the labor market, that's actually a dovish statement. This is kinda like the first time we've heard that much of dovishness out of the Fed in quite a while, so markets are reacting accordingly.
Now when we will get those rate cuts, I don't know. And and, also, we don't know what the future holds. Some weird shit can happen, and we won't see those rate cuts, and we may just be crab walking along with the S and P and the Nasdaq and the Dow forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Who knows? Who knows? All I do know is that until until Trump makes a decision about tariffs and actually installs them, this crap is gonna go on for a while. And I'm not really blaming Trump. I'm just this is the way he negotiates. Right? He he makes everything uncertain around everybody that would be considered a stakeholder in any negotiation that he's ever gonna have, and then he provides a way out. Right? Even if it doesn't have to be a good way out, it just has to be some way out so that confusion can be stalled.
And the reason that that's an important negotiation tactic, especially for someone like Trump, is that it makes people uncomfortable when they're confused, and nobody likes being uncomfortable. So if you sow, you know, if you sow a realm of confusion and uncomfortableness around a whole bunch of people, and then all of a sudden you say, you know, I can make this a whole shitload less uncomfortable if you kinda get on board with what I wanna do. And then all of a sudden, even like I said, even if it's a bad way to go, at least it's a way out. And nobody likes discomfort, no matter if they're wearing a Brooks Brothers suit or a $10 pair of Walmart sneakers. Nobody cares.
Now moving on, Zoltan Vardai out of Cointelegraph says that Tether's US Treasury holdings has surpassed Canada and Taiwan and now ranks seventh globally. This is a company. This is not a nation state. This is Tether. They rank number seven in United States Treasury Holdings. Wow, brother. Tether. The hundred and $43,000,000,000 stablecoin giant, was the world's seventh largest buyer of United States treasuries, surpassing some of the world's largest countries. Tether, the issuer of Tether, USDT, the world's largest stablecoin, was the world's seventh largest treasury buyer surpassing Canada, Taiwan, Mexico, Norway, Hong Kong, and numerous other countries. I find it fascinating that they're calling Hong Kong a country because it's not. It's now part of China. We we screwed that up, but whatever.
The stablecoin issuer acquired over $33,100,000,000 worth of treasuries compared to over 100,000,000,000 purchased by the Cayman Islands, which apparently is in the first place in global rankings according to Paulo Ardoino, the, CEO of Tether. Quote, Tether was the seventh largest buyer of US treasuries in 2024 compared to whole countries, are wrote Ardoino in a March 20 Twitter post. However, Luxembourg and the Cayman Island figures include all the hedge funds buying entity bills, noted Ardoino in the replies, whereas Tether's figures represents the investments of a singular entity.
Tether is investing in US treasuries as additional backing assets for its US dollar peg stablecoin since treasuries are short term debt securities issued by the United States government and are considered some of the safest and most liquid investments available. Yeah. Unless you're a bank and they crash the interest or the the interest rates start to rise and the, the the principal amount or the face value of the bonds crash and all of a sudden you've gotta liquidate because you don't have the holdings to back, you know, all the customers that go to your bank, and then next thing you know, you get taken over by the FDIC. Yeah. I I'm not sure how safe United States treasuries are right now. They certainly haven't been over the last three years, but whatever. Tether's significant growth comes during a period of growing stablecoin adoption among both investors and US Lawmakers.
The growing stablecoin supply recently surpassed 219,000,000,000 and continues to rise, suggesting that the market is likely still, quote, mid cycle as opposed to the top of the bull run according to into the block analysts. US lawmakers are on track to pass legislation setting rules for stablecoins and cryptocurrency market structure by August, Kristin Smith, CEO of industry advocacy group, The Blockchain Association, said during Blockworks twenty twenty five. Smith's timeline echoes a similar forecast by Beau Hines, the executive director of the president councils of advisors on digital assets who said on March 18 that he expects to see comprehensive stablecoin legislation in the coming months. Quote, I think we're close to being able to get those done for August.
They're doing a lot of work. Oh, that's a lot of work. On the behind the scenes right now, Smith said on March 19 at the summit, which Cointelegraph attended. Quote, I'm optimistic when you have the chairs of the relevant committees in the house and the senate and the White House that want to do something, and you've got bipartisan votes in congress to get it there. Yeah. Do something. Somebody do something. Won't somebody think of the stablecoin children? Yeah. I'm telling you, do not don't don't just stick your fingers in your ears about this. You hate stablecoins.
I get it. They're not going anywhere. It's like altcoins. It's like the poor and what Jesus said about the poor. The idiots will always be with you, and I'm not talking about Jesus calling the poor idiots. I'm talking about us right now. If I'm some kind of messiah and I'm walking around in some kind of robe with some freaking Jerusalem cruisers on and somebody asked me about stablecoins and altcoins and shitcoins, I would say the dipshits will always be with you. You're not getting rid of them. You're not getting rid of these people. And second, again, and this is the most important thing, I think, for the next five to ten years minimum, Tether, leading the forefront, and other stablecoins are going to be purchasing the money that The United States prints and exporting that potential poverty to the rest of the world. Why do I call it potential poverty?
As The United States prints money, and Tether, and people like them, buy those treasuries, they print more stablecoin, diluting the amount of stablecoin already on the market. Right? So then that stablecoin gets used in places like Africa and Central America and South America and god only knows where. And yet every time Tether buys more treasuries, they create more stablecoin. It's just fiat. That's all it there's nothing stable about a stablecoin. It's inflation coin. It's be it's digital fiat coin. That's all this shit is. So this is how The United States extends its ability, at least in the mid to short term, five to ten years out, of being able to to still even after all the shit that the world has seen go on with the United States government and their fiscal mismanagement, being able to still export inflation around the world, stealing not only from their own citizenry, but everybody else's citizenry as well.
Be aware, people. That shit's going to happen. Circle p is open for business. Peony Lane Vineyards. You want some wine? Do you want it made by a pleb? Well, this pleb, Justin, he's got this place called Peony Lane Vineyards, and he makes his own wine. And it's high altitude grapes grown in Northwestern Colorado. And he makes some really, really fabulous colored wines. I haven't tasted them, but every single person I see that get gets his wine writes him back on Nostra or Twitter and says how wonderful it is. And I haven't actually seen anybody write back saying this is crap. So I'm just going to make a giant assumption that Peony Lane Vineyards makes high quality wines.
Now if you want to pay for Bitcoin, you can do that. You go to peonylanewine.com. That's peonylanewine.com. P e 0 n y lane wine Com. Peony lane wine Com, and you will be able to select the option to pay in Bitcoin. And if you're not selling your goods and services like a good pleb for Bitcoin, then you're not in the circle p. If you do buy wine from Peony Lane Vineyards, make sure you tell them you heard it about here on the circle p on the Bitcoin and podcast. And maybe, just maybe, Justin will cut me some satoshis for this value for value advertising that he didn't have to pay for upfront. I'm doing this simply because I like seeing plebs successful.
I want to see plebs that are making something that makes their heart soar and be able to sell it and make a living by it. But none of us have the money for a Madison Street advertising agency or marketing agency. We're all poor because we learned, you know, how to fun have how to have fun staying poor. Right? Okay. Now the treasury has expanded financial surveillance of cash transactions. Shit. I didn't even hear about well, I'm sure I heard about this, but I forgot about it. If I forgot about it, I'm pretty sure some of you out there forgot about it too. So this is the reminder from decrypt and Liz Napolitano who says that the Treasury Department, and this is in The United States, has issued an order ramping up surveillance of financial transactions worth as little as $200.
Yeah. If so you you buy let's say you buy a box set of of cream, you know, like Eric Clapton's old band from the seventies. Box set, man. And it's like vintage. It's still like, it it's never been opened before. You're gonna pay more than $200 for a box set of every every album that Cream ever recorded. You're gonna pay more than $200. I guarantee it if it's in mint condition. Yeah. Treasury tracked it. They wanna know that you bought a box of cream. I'm just saying, man. Anyway, questions have abounded over whether the directive could be broadly applied beyond cash to crypto transactions as well, but experts told Decrypt digital asset owners shouldn't be alarmed. Oh, thank god. Although the order raises concerns over Americans' financial privacy rights, it does not apply to people sending and receiving digital assets through platforms such as Coinbase. Quote, there are crypto firms that are licensed and treated as money service businesses.
The order starts with cash, so it looks like this only targets Western Union type businesses, CoinCenter Communications director, Naresh Agrawal, told Decrypt. The temporary order issued last Friday by FinCEN calls for money service businesses in 30 ZIP codes across California and Texas to report cash transactions over $200 down from the standard 10,000 reporting threshold. They went from 10,000 to 200. Why? I don't know. Such reporting would entail the name, address, and Social Security number of the individual initiating the transaction, the amount and the type of money being exchanged, and the recipient, and the purpose of the transaction.
The directive, which will affect more than 1,000,000 people, aims to combat the significant risk to The United States financial system of the cartels, drug traffickers, and other criminal actors along the Southwest Border. Oh, yeah. Like, that's not gonna work, dude. Secretary of the sky of the treasury Scott Bessette said in a March 11 statement, money laundering through money orders, wire transfers, and other services offered by, you know, Western Union style businesses serves as a crucial financial lifeline for drug cartels, enabling organized crime to continue operating and profiting from illegal activities that often promote violence and corruption in communities along The United States Mexico border.
But immigrants and unbanked individuals also rely on those same services using them to send remittances, pay household bills, and, you know, settle debts. While monitoring transactions processed by money services businesses, in some border towns might help thwart drug cartel activities, any potential upside of the order will come at the expense of some pretty severe intrusions into normal people's lives. That's according to Nick Anthony, a policy analyst at libertarian think tank Cato Institute, quote, this is going to affect folks on the lower end of the income spectrum who frequently use these kinds of alternative financial services. People who thought they had a sense of financial privacy are going to quickly find out that they don't and that the government can actually conduct sweeping surveillance at a moment's notice, end quote.
And although crypto firms don't have to comply with the order, the new rules should alarm digital asset hodlers and anyone else who advocates for financial autonomy and the right to conduct one's business away from the watchful eye of the federal government. Quote, this is gonna be pretty harsh wake up call for a lot of people that the fourth amendment does not work the way many think. Anthony said that the or added that the US Treasury's temporary order, which could later be extended, nothing nothing is more permanent than a United States temporary order. Remember 1971 when Nixon took us temporarily off the gold standard? Yeah. This ain't ever going away. Anyway, it effectively encourages businesses to report transactions that fall below the new $200 threshold. Shit. I'm not gonna be able to buy a piece of gum after a while without having to give my Social Security number. This is ridiculous.
Money service businesses are requiring the law to flag anything, anything that looks like structuring or the act of breaking up large financial transactions into several smaller transactions to avoid said federal reporting requirements. So if a business suspects that a client is sending a hundred and $85 to avoid the $200 reporting threshold, it must file a report with the United States Treasury to flag the transaction and the individual who attempted it, Anthony explained. That opens up a whole separate problem where the $200 threshold really effectively becomes a $0 threshold.
The stringent surveillance rules, according to Anthony, could drive clients of Western Union and MoneyGram to crypto. This announcement will push people to look into alternatives, whether that be cryptocurrency or just something else, Anthony said. But, quote, it should be a decision that people are making solely on what fits them best, solely what fits their needs, and not because the other options are being effectively crushed. This is just bad. You know, every time I turn around, I'm like, oh, okay. Well, you know, the orange man said he was gonna, like, you know, be cool about all this kind of stuff. And he's not being cool about all this kind of stuff. This is ridiculous, and it needs to freaking stop. Maybe Pakistan knows something that we don't because Pakistan plans to legalize Bitcoin and crypto.
Vivek send Bitcoin, Bitcoin magazine. Pakistan unveils plans to legalize Bitcoin and crypto and implement a regulatory framework. Bilal bin Saqib, CEO of the Pakistan Crypto Council, told Bloomberg on Thursday that Pakistan has unveiled said plans to legalize Bitcoin and implement a regulatory framework to attract foreign investment and boost adoption. The government aims to devise clear regulations and align with international best practices. Pakistan's Finance Minister formed the PCC last week to steer the country's crypto strategy. Pakistan is done sitting on the sidelines regarding Bitcoin and crypto, Saqib told Bloomberg.
Quote, we want to attract international investment because Pakistan is a low cost, high growth market with 60% of the population being 30 years old. Quote, Trump is making crypto a national priority, and every country, including Pakistan, will have to follow suit, he said. This move comes amid a global shift in attitudes towards Bitcoin and crypto after The United States pushed for greater mainstream acceptance. The new stance is a stark change for Pakistan, which had previously banned crypto. But by embracing Bitcoin and crypto early, Pakistan is looking to position itself as a regional leader and attract investors.
Pakistan's central bank has expressed concerns earlier. However, the government seeks to mitigate risks through prudent legislation and clear rules could boost innovation and prevent potential abuse of decentralized networks, yada yada yada. Alright. What's so what's cool about this? Pakistan is India's enemy, and they live right next door to each other. So this was probably going to poke and prod India to getting even further into a pro Bitcoin stance. We'll have to see if that actually works. But, you know, even though Pakistan is much smaller than India, Pakistan is, as far as India is concerned, has never been anything to sneeze at.
They are have been and will continue to be more than a very large thorn in the side of India. India just they just cannot figure out how to win over the Kashmir region, which is essentially what Pakistan and India have been fighting about for decades. But now, see, now Pakistan's embracing Bitcoin. What does that do to India? Because India is going to listen to what Pakistan is doing. Not to mention the fact that Trump is starting to become pro Bitcoin and, you know, well, god, I hate to say it, but pro crypto. So India is a huge country. It had massive population.
It's not something to sneeze at, ladies and gentlemen. Let let's run the numbers. Futures and commodities. I got oil. West Texas Intermediate is up almost two full points today, back up to $68.40. Brent Norsee is up 1.72% to $72 flat. Natural gas, of course, moving the opposite direction, down four and a half percent to $4.05 per thousand cubic, and gasoline is up point 68% to $2.18 a gallon. Metals are mixed today. Gold, $3,047. That's after a fifth of a point rise. Silver, however, is down two thirds of a point. Platinum is down one and two thirds of a point. Copper is up, they have point 08%, and palladium is down over 1%.
Ag, let's see. Who's the biggest winner today? It's gonna be Sugar. 1.7% to the upside. Biggest loser is wheat. 1.3% to the downside. Live cattle are up point 12%. Lean hogs are up point 18%, but feeder cattle are down point 08%. And, yes, the equity markets are rallying because they got good news out of the Fed or at least some dovish talk. Dow is up a half a point. S and P is up point 38%. Nasdaq is up a half point, and the S and P Mini is up point 13%. And for a little bit, we were doing okay on Bitcoin. It got up to, like, 86,000, but now we've plunged back down to $84,760.
And since the equity markets didn't follow suit immediately, I'm assuming this was not caused by orange man saying the word tariff. But we still have a $1,680,000,000,000 market cap. We can get 27.6 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our one Bitcoin of which there are 19,839,307.2 of. And average fees per block are a little higher than yesterday, 0.04 BTC taken in fees on a per block basis, and there are 49 blocks carrying 20,000 unconfirmed transactions. But, wow, fees are a little high this morning. 7 whole Satoshis per vbyte, that's high priority, and it's the same for low priority.
Now for mining, we are dipped back down below 800 exahashes, and we are standing at 798.8 exahashes per second. So the security is strong with Bitcoin. And from the fog of stupid, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and and it man, I I brought you some fog. It's stupid right there from Western Europe. My god almighty. 21,000 or not 21,000. Two thousand one hundred. Yeah. Wishful thinking. From and I don't know who it's from. I can't I I can't see. See. But it says, continue the good work bringing us fellow plebs the news. Yes, sir. Will do. Oak Grove with 1,056 says, I missed boosting the last show.
Good news. Halana Diaz, the director slash creator of the documentary, Dirtycoin, had a showing at both South by Southwest and Bitcoin Takeover. That means she broke Bitcoin into South by Southwest for the first time. Oak Grove, thank you for that news. That's that's actually good news. It's about damn time the people over at South by Southwest figured out that they are on the losing side of innovation. I mean, money. Dude, you can tell me about the newest flat screen TV all day long if you want to, but that's not gonna really change my life. Money. That's where the technology is going. Perma nerd with two thirty four says, like Shishi 21 m Compre, this episode will cure a lot that ails you. I love how Perma Nerd is is mixing that in.
Psyduck with five sixty eight says, Psyduck. Yodel. 300. 10 trillion divided by 450,000,000 equals 22 k. That's savings per living person in the EU. Oh, okay. I have 10,000,000,000,000 by 450,000,000 for $22,000. They'd have to take okay. So I'm sure that yeah. I guess that that that does make sense. I'm I'm sure that there's probably a lot of people in Europe that have $22,000. And I'm not being facetious, Yodel. I'm actually kind of working this out. That would have to be everybody, though. But then again, you know, there's like, if you had half of those people had 44,000, euro and the other half had zero, you'd still end up with with 10,000,000,000,000. So I'm just gonna say, I feel bad for the people that are about to get their money stolen because it looks like the money that's going to be stolen is actually there.
Amazing. Doesn't make it any better, but it's still amazing. God's death February. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Augie Chute with a hundred sat says, when did you visit Europe last time? Augie I think Augie Chute is, like, really mad at me. Pies with a hundred says, thank you, sir. Hashtag 40 HPW. Oak Grove, for with another hundred sat says, forgot to boost for October. I have some good news. There is finally a crossover in South by Southwest. Praise the Lord. Oh, and then he goes talks about Joanna Diaz, in the documentary Dirty Coin. So I guess he did it from another spot. And that's it, man. That that that's the weather report.
Welcome to part two of the news that you can use starting out with president Trump addressing the digital assets summit. This is by Nick out of Bitcoin Magazine. President Trump is expected to deliver a speech tomorrow via a recording at BlockWorks Digital Asset Summit in New York City, and this will be the first time a US sitting president has addressed a Bitcoin and crypto conference highlighting the growing influence of digital assets and mainstream financial policy. We kinda covered this a little bit at the head of the show. Well, let's see what else they got to say about what Trump wants to go do. Trump said or Trump has previously engaged with the Bitcoin community, having spoken in person at the world's largest Bitcoin conference in Nashville.
Trump's upcoming address to the DAS comes only just a couple of weeks after moving forward with officially integrating Bitcoin into national strategy when he signed the executive order establishing The US strategic Bitcoin reserve. Joining the lineup for the DAS is strategy's Michael Saylor, of course, because he has to be in on everything, who will deliver a keynote speech and engage in a fireside chat with Bitcoin historian Pete Rizzo. Additionally, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seffert will host a panel discussion with BlackRock's head of digital assets, Robbie, Michnik, and Nasdaq's head of US equities and exchange, traded products, Gang Buoy, where they will delve into the evolving landscape of the Bitcoin ETFs and institutional adoption.
The announcement of Trump's participation follows remarks from Beau Hines, executive director on digital assets for president Trump. And see, is there anything of, he's just gonna be talk he's just talking, so and it looks like they've they've already been talking. So we'll just go ahead and leave this one to the birds and go on to North Carolina. North Carolina follows suit. They've proposed a bill to invest $950,000,000 into Bitcoin. This is out of Atlas twenty one, newsroom is who's writing it. So I don't know who the hell newsroom is, but, hope they wear pants.
A new proposal introduced in North Carolina would allow the state to make public investments in Bitcoin. Republican senators Todd Johnson, Brad Overcash, I like these names, and Timothy Moffitt have introduced a bill titled the North Carolina Bitcoin Reserve and Investment Act SB three twenty seven. That would authorize the state's treasurer office to allocate up to 10 of public state funds into Bitcoin. The percentage applied to the current general fund of 9,500,000,000.0 could result in a potential investment of around $950,000,000 And if approved, the bill would lead to the creation of a specific Bitcoin reserve managed by the state treasurer.
The bill stipulates that the acquired Bitcoin be stored in multi signature cold wallets and undergo monthly audits. Purchases would be made exclusively through regulated cryptocurrency exchanges based in The US, while the possibility of mining operations to increase the reserves would also be explored. The proposal establishes restrictions on the use of the reserve requiring approval from two thirds of both chambers of the general assembly for any liquidation of Bitcoin. Permitted uses include, one, response to major financial crises. Two, funding of critical infrastructure, three, support for Bitcoin research and education, and four, collateral for bonds for public projects.
So munis, municipal bonds. A Bitcoin economic advisory board composed of industry experts would provide ongoing advice while the treasurer would be required to submit quarterly reports on the reserve's status and performance. SB three twenty seven marks the second bill. Oh, second bill for a strategic Bitcoin reserve introduced in North Carolina. Last month, representatives Destin Hall and Mark Brody along with Steve Ross introduced the NC Digital Asset Investment Act or House Bill 92, which would allow the state treasurer to invest up to 10% of state funds in digital assets with a minimum market capitalization of $750,000,000,000.
House bill 92, passed the first reading on February, and then was referred to the committee on pensions and retirement earlier this month for further review, and we don't have any other news on where house bill 92 actually stands right now. But a second bill in North Carolina, this is good news, man. And that's originating in the senate, whereas the first bill originated in the house of representatives. So both the house and the senate are jumping on the gravy train, man. Everybody wants to get in on this one. Okay.
This one's an important one out of Shinobi from Bitcoin Magazine. If congress wants to be pro Bitcoin, then act like it. This is this is about more than you think, and it's it's this is kinda critical. We need to do this. It's recently come to my attention that multiple United States Congressmen have taken very public pro Bitcoin stances, but they're not aware of the currently unfolding prosecution of samurai wallet developers, Keone Rodriguez and William Hill. This is simply mind boggling to me as a Bitcoiner. The current legal prosecution of the samurai team as well as the relevant prosecutions against Roman Sterlingov accused of operating the Bitcoin mixer called Bitcoin Fog and Roman Storm and Roman Simonov, which are two developers behind Tornado Cash, are the most important legal cases impacting sovereign and private uses of Bitcoin on the docket today.
Roman Sterlingov is sitting in jail right now after a conviction attained with zero hard evidence whatsoever. His conviction was based on nothing more than unproven assertions by blockchain analysis company Chainalysis. The samurai and tornado cash developers are being prosecuted under money laundering legislation for developing, you know, purely self custodial software that in no circumstances in which their software could be used, gave them any control over any user funds. The fact that this is not only not on the radar of any congressman or congresswoman who claims to be pro Bitcoin but not being loudly talked about, it's absurd.
So let's do something to change that. I'm calling on every United States citizen reading this to take the form letter below, fill it in appropriately, and send it to your congressman or congresswoman, especially if you are in a district with a representative claiming publicly to be pro Bitcoin. Okay. And then the letter follows. And it's you just you can just, like, copy it. It it's in the article. Right? You just, like, highlight everything, copy it, paste it into whatever word processor you use, and fill out, like, your name, your address, city, state, ZIP code, email, phone number, date, name of the representative, you know, where they are, blah blah blah. And then it actually has the body of the letter, which I'm not going to read.
Because what I'm hoping that you do is that you go into the show notes for today's episode, and you find the URL that goes that links directly to this bitcoin.bitcoinmagazine.com article, and you read the letter yourself. Shinobi's already written the letter. And I, honestly, I don't think it's gonna matter if it's a form letter. If you if if they keep getting mail, if your representative or your senator or whatever, if you keep hammering them, they're going to start going, well, who's this Roman Sterlingov guy? Who's these these other Roman dudes? I mean, what's what's what's going on? They don't know. That's what Shinobi is saying is that they say that they're all about Bitcoin, but, dudes, they are just dipping their toes into the water.
This time last year, there was barely any senators or representatives really talking about it in a positive light anyway. Because the people that wanna talk about Bitcoin in a negative light, they don't care about the trials. If they did care about the trials, it's just ammunition for them saying, look, they're all criminals. I don't think these people that are on trial for tornado cash and Bitcoin, they're not in the samurai team. They're not criminals. They're they they wrote code. That's protected. That's a protected first amendment right. Now they're doing it in other countries, but this is seems to be all being persecuted in The United States.
So be that as it may, even if they are not of this origin, I'm not sure what legal right The United States would have to persecute somebody for freedom of speech even if their country of origin origin doesn't allow that, they're here, or they are being prosecuted here. So we why the courts aren't adhering to the first amendment right that code is free speech is beyond my capacity for understanding. And I'll bet you that it would be beyond the capacity for senators and house of representative guys to be like if they knew what was going on, they would be like, wait a minute. Code is free speech. And and when you copy this letter, maybe you should say that. By the way, in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, it was found that writing software is protected free speech under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of The United States.
That should probably be in here. Anyway, go get the letter, sign it, give them your address. Who gives a shit? I mean, at one point or another, we gotta fight. Right? Right. Now beware of cracked TradingView. Do you use TradingView? I do. I don't use it to trade. It's not connected to any of my bank accounts. I don't have a credit card. I just use it to look at charts, which is why I feel good, but I feel bad for the other people because check this shit out from Steven Kotti, Cointelegraph. Beware of cracked trading view. It's a crypto stealing trojan, as if we needed one more thing to worry about.
Cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes has warned of a new form of crypto stealing malware hidden inside a cracked version of TradingView Premium, software that provides charting tools for financial markets. The scammers are lurking on crypto reddits posting links to Windows and Mac installers for TradingView Premium Cracked, which is laced with malware aimed at stealing personal data and draining crypto wallets, Jerome Segura, a senior security researcher at Malwarebytes, said in a March 18 post. Quote, we have heard of victims whose crypto wallets have been emptied and were subsequently impersonated by the criminals who sent phishing links to their contacts.
Oh, ugly. As part of the snare, the fraudsters claim the programs are free and have been cracked directly from their official version unlocking premium features. It actually contains not one but two malware programs, Luma Steeler and Atomic Steeler. Luma Steeler is an import information stealer that's been around since 2022 and primarily targets cryptocurrency wallets and two factor authentication browser extensions. Atomic Steeler was first discovered in April of twenty twenty three and is known for its ability to capture data such as administrator and keychain passwords. Besides TradingView Premium Cracked, the scammers have offered other fraudulent trading programs to target crypto traders on Reddit.
Segura said one of the interesting aspects of the scheme is that the scammer also takes the time to assist users in downloading the malware written software and help resolve any issues with the download. Well, that's with their best interest to provide quality customer service. Anyway, quote, what's interesting with this particular scheme is how involved the original poster is going through the thread and being helpful to users asking questions or reporting an issue, while the original post gives a heads up that you were installing these files at your own risk. Further on in the thread, we can read comments from the original poster.
The origin of the malware isn't clear, but Malwarebytes found that the website hosting the files belonged to a Dubai cleaning company, and the malware command and control server has been registered by someone in Russia roughly one week ago. Segura says that the crack software has been prone to containing malware for decades, but the lure of a free lunch is still very appealing. Common red flags to watch out for with these types of scams are instructions to disable security software so that the program can run and files that are password protected according to malware bytes. In this instance, Segura says the files are double zipped with the final zip being password protected.
For comparison, a legitimate executable would not need to be distributed in such fashion. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis reported in its 2025 crypto crime report that crypto crime has entered a professionalized era dominated by AI driven scams, stablecoin laundering, and efficient cyber syndicates. In the past year, the analytics firm estimates that there was, holy shit, $51,000,000,000 in illicit transaction volume. Oh my god. So for all you guys out there that were wishing that you had premium, trading view, just just pay for it. Just pay for it, man. Now there was a time, you know, was a time back in the day when things like LimeWire were still around.
You know, it's like right around the time that that Napster was gaining steam. I could go get cracked versions of AutoCAD, Maya, three d animation software package. You name it, dude. There was it it wasn't even as much as it was cracked. I mean, you know, some of them were cracked, but the majority of them, this was before license servers and, like, connected, you know, like, license servers being connected to the Internet or license servers being, quote, always on, and you had to your your program continuously had to ping a license server that was not on your own machine. This was before all of that.
And people just give you the CD key to Windows, to whatever. Like I said, like AutoCAD, especially back in the nineties, you know, it's expensive now. But you think it's expensive now? You should have seen AutoCAD a long time ago and what that shit cost. That was not fun, man. And if you wanted to use AutoCAD or you wanted to learn AutoCAD and how to work it, you either had to buy it or you had to go to school and buy an education to learn it because there was no such thing as an educational package. Your only option was to go find either the cracked version or the one with the CD key available, which is what I did.
I don't do that shit anymore because everything is dangerous. This is a demonstration of that. Now it's different. It's not, you know, innocent piracy anymore. It's this convoluted fog of stupid bullshit. Right? So be careful. The free lunch thing, it's it's never a good idea anymore. Back in the nineties, chances are good you were gonna be okay. Now just stay away from it. If for whatever reason you need the advanced features of TradingView, dude, just just buy it. Just buy it. Y'all be safe out there. I'll see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin, and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.
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