Join me today for Episode 1064 of Bitcoin And . . .
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https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/crypto-fund-manager-single-largest-arbitrage-human-history
https://ditto.pub/@[email protected]/posts/bc3219f4f55f74f602c3ec1daeca65f8baa0427a53b635932793a0f5b0a124bf
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/18/bitcoin-focused-metaplanet-to-spit-stock-10-1-after-3-900-price-surge
https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-carolina-dismisses-staking-lawsuit-against-coinbase
https://atlas21.com/panama-bill-introduced-to-regulate-cryptocurrency-payments/
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/proposed-bipartisan-legislation-recognizes-bitcoin-as-a-technology-that-supports-democracy
https://atlas21.com/lummis-the-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-could-halve-the-us-debt/
https://www.theblock.co/post/348622/french-state-bank-bpifrance-plans-e25-million-crypto-fund-to-invest-directly-in-digital-assets-support-french-companies
https://www.theblock.co/post/348571/spot-bitcoin-etfs-report-10th-straight-day-of-net-inflows-analyst-says-bitcoin-demand-persists
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/braiins-bcb100-bitcoin-control-board-open-sourced/
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Topics for today:
- Stables: Single Largest Arbitrage in Generation
- Tether Stakes Into Ag and Media Companies
- South Carolina Drops Coinbase Suit
- Bipartisan Bitcoin Legislation
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Articles:
https://decrypt.co/312042/tether-pours-capital-into-companies-amid-investment-spreehttps://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/crypto-fund-manager-single-largest-arbitrage-human-history
https://ditto.pub/@[email protected]/posts/bc3219f4f55f74f602c3ec1daeca65f8baa0427a53b635932793a0f5b0a124bf
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/02/18/bitcoin-focused-metaplanet-to-spit-stock-10-1-after-3-900-price-surge
https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-carolina-dismisses-staking-lawsuit-against-coinbase
https://atlas21.com/panama-bill-introduced-to-regulate-cryptocurrency-payments/
- 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://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/proposed-bipartisan-legislation-recognizes-bitcoin-as-a-technology-that-supports-democracy
https://atlas21.com/lummis-the-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-could-halve-the-us-debt/
https://www.theblock.co/post/348622/french-state-bank-bpifrance-plans-e25-million-crypto-fund-to-invest-directly-in-digital-assets-support-french-companies
https://www.theblock.co/post/348571/spot-bitcoin-etfs-report-10th-straight-day-of-net-inflows-analyst-says-bitcoin-demand-persists
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/braiins-bcb100-bitcoin-control-board-open-sourced/
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[00:00:02]
David Bennett:
It is 09:03AM Pacific Daylight Time. It is the March 2025 and this is episode ten sixty four of Bitcoin and I got a lot to cover so we're jumping right in. Tether pours capital into media and agriculture companies amid an investment spree. Liz Napolitano decrypt. I just, this is so weird they're getting into agriculture. I mean, honestly, it actually makes sense, but it's just not something I would have expected from Tether. Anyway, they revealed on Thursday that Tether is investing in a pair of firms unrelated at all to the crypto industry, continuing an investment spree that has only intensified since the company reported record profits earlier this year.
The El Salvador based company snapped up 49,000 no. 49,596,510 shares of Latin American focused agricultural firm, Adeccorago. Wait. Acura Curagra. Adecc agro or something like that. It's oh, I know. Adecco agro growing at stake in the business to 70% according to an SEC filing published on Thursday. So Tether now owns 70% of an agricultural firm based out of Latin America. Quote, our investment aligns with Tether's broader strategy of back infrastructure, technology, and backing businesses that advance economic freedom and resilience, especially in regions where these values are most needed, Paolo Ordano, CEO of Tether, said in a statement. Adecco Agro is a sustainable production company with interest in Argentina, Brazil, and they say Argentina twice. So I I don't know. I guess just Argentina and Brazil.
Separately, Ardoino announced on Twitter that his company would be investing in Italian media company, BeWater. By the March, Tether will hold 30.4% stake in the company via a £10,000,000 capital increase in equity acquisition, quote, while often media companies are bullied into kneeling to sponsor narratives simply to survive, Tether's investment in BeWater ensures that the group will continue to remain solid, visionary, and especially independent, Paolo wrote in a Twitter post. The private company's latest investment comes a few months after it reported record smashing profits in 02/2024. Tether said that in January, its yearly net profits hit a new all time high of more than $13,000,000,000, citing an assurance opinion for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four issued by global accounting firm BDO.
The stablecoin issuer also reported $7,000,000,000 in excess capital. That's, like, almost twice as much as what GameStop has chilling out on their books right now. Tether has used its funds over the past few months to increase its stake in the Bitcoin mining company, BitDeer, in addition to upping it upping its controls of companies such as video platform, Rumble, and the Italian football club, Juventus. Last year, it also invested 19,000,000 in x r no. Ex Rex Group, a firm that also has backing from the Taiwanese government national development fund. USDT is the third largest cryptocurrency and the largest stablecoin in the world with a market capitalization of $144,000,000,000 according to CoinGecko data.
The media company, I can see. I can definitely see them investing into a media company. The agricultural side, I think, is coming out of the fact that that the guys over at Tether, I say what you want about Tether. I don't use it because I don't need it, but I don't hate it. And the one of the reasons why I don't hate it is that the guys behind Tether are all solid Bitcoiners. I I can't find any evidence where they're shitting all over Bitcoin. So the Bitcoin ethos that that I came to know very, very quickly was all about resilience. It was all about, you know, anti fragility, that those kinds of things. And when I first got into Bitcoin, I dismissed. Well, when I first got into Bitcoin, it was after about a couple of slaps.
I knew about it. I dismissed it as, like, video game money, and I've seen video game economies just basically crash because of duplication bugs. But it wasn't until I started noticing that all the guys that were into Bitcoin at the time were talking they were talking about anti fragility and Nicholas Taleb and, resilience. And and these are the things that I had been hearing out of the same people that I was enamored with out of the permaculture and regenerative agriculture movement, which I was deep into be right before I got into Bitcoin. And it was that that caused me to go, wait a minute. These are the same guys.
If I respect these guys over here in regen ag and permaculture, then and these guys over here in Bitcoin are talking about almost the exact same shit, then that is something I should probably be looking at. And I did. And I'm never looked back, and I'm happy for it. But this brings me back to agriculture. There's so many people in Bitcoin that are interested in ranching, in agriculture, in high quality food, in nutrient dense food. This actually makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, on the surface, it doesn't, but if you crawl underneath and you go back in time and listen to what Paolo, Ardoino, and the other guys over at Tether were saying at the very beginnings, right before they started Tether and right when they were starting it, you you come to realize that they were part of that same crew that was talking about antifragility, resilience, They're fascinated with nutrient dense food, so the ag side actually makes a whole lot of sense.
And keeping on track with the fact that I've been talking about stablecoins and their what their impact is going to be whether you like it or not. A, they're not going away. B, they're gonna get stronger. C, no, they don't replace Bitcoin. Bitcoin backs this whole thing at one at one stage or another, and then you'll say no, it's treasury bonds. Yeah. I I know. I get that. I'm just talking about the underlying structure of where we're all headed is backed by Bitcoin. That said, this is at a zero hedge. Crypto Fund Manager says this is the single largest arbitrage in human history.
Investors from both traditional finance and the crypto world are increasingly aligning on the view that stablecoins represents one of the most significant business opportunities in a generation. Such is the belief of Kyle Samani, managing partner of Multicoin Capital, who recently said that stablecoins will likely turn out to be quote the single largest arbitrage in human history. Quote there's 8,000,000,000 people on the planet. If you could go to each of those 8,000,000,000 people and ask them if they can denominate their wealth in any asset like gold, Apple stock, s and p €500, yen, whatever you want, my suspicion is if you went and asked everyone in the world and they could answer the question without fear of political persecution, I suspect five to seven billion of them would say United States dollars, Samani said during a recent panel discussion at Digital Asset Summit twenty twenty five in New York City.
Quote, it's like probably the single largest arbitrage ever in human history, and it's just going to get those people what they want. The crypto investor and venture capital capitalist added, quote, if you think that's what they want, then give it to them. And crypto rails are going to be the mechanism by which you do so. And so I think there's a massive opportunity to get stablecoins in the hands of billions of people. Stablecoins are experiencing rapid growth due to their unique ability to combine the stability of traditional fiat currencies with the efficiency and accessibility of blockchain technology.
Oh, I love this part. Unlike volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, stablecoins are pegged to assets such as the US dollar, offering a reliable store of value that appeals to both retail and institutional investors. Their use cases are vast and expanding. They enable fast low cost cross border payments bypassing the inefficiencies of traditional banking systems. They serve as a bridge between fiat and crypto markets facilitating seamless trading on exchanges, and they power decentralized finance platforms where you can lend, borrow, and earn interest without intermediaries. Additionally, stablecoins are increasingly adopted in real world applications such as remittances, micropayments, and even as a hedge against inflation in countries with unstable currencies.
On chain data highlight a remarkable rise in Ethereum's stablecoin supply peaking at a record breaking $132,400,000,000 Tether and USD coin lead the pack, forming the lion's share of the stablecoin volume on this blockchain. As of 03/24/2025, USDT on Ethereum surpassed 75,000,000,000 with USDC trailing at just above 39,000,000,000. Additional stablecoins like USDE, USDS, DAI, FDUSD, and PiUSD contributed 5,390,000,000.00, 4 point 4 9 billion, 2 point 9 billion, 2 billion, and 714,000,000 respectively. In another feed of the stablecoin space, Tether CEO, Paulo Ardoino, recently revealed that the company purchased more US treasuries than Canada, retaining $33,100,000,000 of United States government debt.
Last week, the senate banking committee approved the guiding and establishing national innovation for US Stablecoins act of 2025 known as the Genius Act. With a bipartisan vote of 18 to six, advancing it out of committee, president Trump has voiced his intent to sign payment stablecoin legislation into law sometime this year. Let's go back. Now, yes, there was even I was cringing as I was reading that, so you're not alone. Right? Because it sounds like well, actually, it doesn't sound like it's clear that the person writing this does not fully understand at all what stablecoins actually mean nor the relationship that stablecoins have always had and will continue to have with Bitcoin.
Sure, Bitcoin's volatile. This person is suggesting that stablecoins and it's a very slight suggestion, but this person is suggesting that stablecoins are are better at remittances. Okay. From a rail standpoint and from a volatility standpoint, you're right. But that's not really the problem, is it? These stablecoins are backed by the US dollar, which has turned into a debt instrument. It's not really money anymore. Well, I mean, it it acts like money. It does what money is supposed to do for the time being, but it's rapidly and has rapidly become not as much money as it is a representation of massive amounts of amounts of unpayable debt.
So the stablecoin mechanism is one thing, but the value that makes the stablecoin or rather the stablecoin carries with it the essence of that which it is backed by. And in this case, it's only backed by the continual issuance of United States debt. And and what, Kyle Samani was saying is that we're going to export all these stablecoins to five to 7,000,000,000 people of the world. Okay. Well, what it really means is that we're going to export The United States' debt to five to 7,000,000,000 people across the world. That's not sustainable.
I'm sorry. I don't care. Do oh, you're you're so you got your PhD in economics where? I didn't. And for anybody asking, you can go pound sand. This is not rocket science. It's not that hard. This is a mechanism to make the rest of the world as poor as humanly possible and as fast as economically possible. The only thing that comes in to actually backstop all of this nonsense is the existence of bitcoin. And at one point or another, people are going to stop fooling around with making other people poor because it doesn't really help you. You might think you got rich, but it's not really going to help you when you've got a a view of nothing but poverty.
No one wants to see it. It doesn't do your heart any good. It crushes your soul. And the more people that become poor and barn mice is the more chance you've got of seeing nothing but just devastation when you look out of the windows of your huge mansion. Nobody wants it. It's not good for the soul. So understand that these people that are writing this particular zero hedge piece don't really understand what's actually occurring. And if you were looking at Meta Planet stock last night on the weekly candles, you would have seen a 90% drawdown.
Yes. Meta Planet crashed by 90%. No. Not not not really. It it at first at first, we were thinking that it was a it was just a a, like, data like, really, really terrible data that got fed into TradingView, which is the charting one of the main, chart programs that people use in in this space and and, honestly, a lot of other spaces now too. But it just it was a 90% gamble of the downside. What happened is this. Meta Planet is set to do a 10 to one stock split, and it looks like some somehow or another data got fed, which increased the normal price of what Meta Planet was by 10 times, but then the candle also reflected as as that it would that it had fallen to its actual price of a share after a tenfold increase in what it normally would have cost. If you don't understand any of that, let me let me explain it to you through this CoinDesk article, Bitcoin focused Meta Planet to spit or split stock 10 to one after a 3900% price surge, Francisco Rodriguez is riding it.
Following a rocketing higher in its stock price since the beginning to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet less than a year ago, Meta Planet has announced a 10 to one stock split to take effect on April, which we are not close to yet. That's just a that's a few days away, but that what happened last night is not April 1. Right? So the Tokyo based firm first started buying Bitcoin in April of twenty twenty four and since has accumulated 2,031 tokens worth nearly 200,000,000. The purchases were the driving factor in Meta Planet being the best performing Japanese equity over the past twelve months with a gain of 3900%. That price rise has created a substantial financial burden for investors, the company said in a press release announcing the split.
To address this, we have decided to conduct a stock split to lower the price per trading unit, thereby improving liquidity, expanding our investor base, and strengthening our connection with a broader range of shareholders, the company continued. Alright. So it doesn't get at all into, like, this this weird looking candle that that we all saw last night. So it looks like what happened was that TradingView's data that was being fed to it, wherever wherever TradingView gets its data from, right, that the data being fed to it last night represented the stock split, but at the same time also represented the actual share price after it it I know. It's it's bizarre.
But what I'm wondering about is how did they get a hold of the data? What what what hap what broke? Because I've read two stories where the stock was to split March 20 or or actually, if I go and I'll actually, I didn't read a story. I was actually looking back at the Meta Planet chart, and it showed a stock split at the bottom of the screen that occurred on March. And as far as I know, that's not what's occurring. We're supposed to see the stock split on April. So if any of you other people out there got confused about what the hell was going on with Meta Planet, then, yeah, that's what's going on. I think it was just, like, data that should not have been released accidentally got released.
And if you feel like you've been dirtied or sullied somehow by the fact that I really botched trying to explain that to you, you can clean up with handmade tallow soap. Circle p is open for business. Soap miner makes some of the best soaps. I have his soap. He actually shipped me some soap for me to try. It's badass. I I it's clean. It does its job, and the and there is a version of it that has no dyes, no, like, sense. It's just it's called rustic tallow and it's got three ingredients, 100% beef tallow, lye, and distilled water. These are all tallow or beef fat made soaps.
There's soap always has fat in it. And the ones that you get at the grocery store, god only knows, they may be using canola oil for the fat base. I have no idea. I'm uninterested in anything but really high quality soap, and you can get yours at soapminer.com. That's soapminer.com. Again, that's s0apminer.com, and make sure when you order that in the notes section, you say I heard about it on the circle p, and that would allow SoapMiner to make a decision as to whether or not he feels that me making a sale of his soap for him on the in the circle p on the Bitcoin and podcast is worth some Satoshis, which, hopefully, he will cut to me because, hopefully, you go and buy his soap.
Plebs making Plebs happy is what the Circle p is all about. Now on to South Carolina, they've dismissed its staking lawsuit against Coinbase, apparently reflecting what Vermont's doing. Braden Lindria from Cointelegraph, South Carolina has become the latest US state to dismiss its lawsuit against Coinbase over its staking services, which had accused the crypto exchange of offering unregistered securities. The lawsuit was officially dismissed in a joint stipulation between the crypto exchange and the South Carolina Attorney General's Securities Division on March.
South Carolina just joined Vermont to dismiss its unfounded staking lawsuit against Coinbase, said the firm's chief legal officer, Paul Gruel. South Carolina and Vermont were two of the 10 US states that took legal action against Coinbase's staking services back in June of twenty twenty three, the same, day that the federal securities regulator filed its lawsuit against the crypto exchange. The Securities and Exchange Commission officially dismissed that lawsuit on February 2025. The other eight US states that filed enforcement action similar to South Carolina were Alabama, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington, and Wisconsin. Gruel said he hoped to see other states follow suit and that South Carolina residents lost an estimated $2,000,000 in staking rewards as a result of the lawsuit.
The 52,000,000 Americans who own crypto deserve common sense consumer protections and clear rules. We applaud South Carolina for standing up for justice and hope the remaining states or states with bans on staking will take notice. Meanwhile, and this is, like, related but has nothing to do with Coinbase. We're just talking about South Carolina. South Carolina has introduced a Bitcoin reserve bill of their own. A state lawmaker has just introduced the Strategic Digital Assets Reserve Act of South Carolina of March on March, which could see the state treasurer allocate up to 10% of certain state funds to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
Unlike most US state crypto reserve bills, North Carolina's house bill 4,256 introduced by representative Jordan Pace mentioned Bitcoin on several occasions for the strategic digital asset reserve that the bill seeks to establish. The bill allows South Carolina's treasurer, currently Curtis Loftus, to establish a Bitcoin reserve that exceeds no more than 1,000,000 Bitcoin, a high ceiling that the US federal government is also looking to reach or exceed with its recently established strategic Bitcoin reserve. The treasurer would be able to add Bitcoin to South Carolina's general fund, the budget stabilization reserve fund, and any other investment fund that they manage.
So there you go. Now this is this is gonna be interesting, I think. I think it's gonna have some some ramifications for the future. Panama, the country, Panama, they've introduced a bill to regulate cryptocurrency payments. Panama has introduced a bill to regulate cryptocurrencies, aiming to create a clear legal framework for the use of digital assets in financial transactions. The proposed regulation includes licensing requirements for crypto service providers and compliance measures in line with international financial standards. The bill will now be discussed in the committees of the National Assembly where it may undergo changes before the final vote. And if approved, Panama would position itself as one of the most advanced countries in Latin America in terms of cryptocurrency regulation.
One of the central points of the regulation is the legal recognition of digital assets as a payment tool. This means that citizens and businesses can freely agree to use bitcoin, shitcoin number one, and stablecoins in their commercial transactions and civil contracts. The use of cryptocurrencies will be allowed for purchasing goods and services, paying debts, and other financial operations as long as both parties agree. The bill introduces specific regulations for virtual asset service providers including custody platforms, exchanges, and cryptocurrency wallets.
Operators will need to register in a national database, oh, great, managed by the financial analysis unit, and obtain official authorization to operate in the country. Moreover, they will need to comply with know your customer and anti money laundering regulations following the guidelines of those idiots at the financial action Task Force that nobody elected. Those who fail to adhere to the rules will face administrative or criminal penalties. In addition to cryptocurrency regulation in Panama, the bill also proposes the use of blockchain technology in public administration, and the goal would be to improve bureaucratic efficiency and ensure greater transparency through digital identity systems, so watch out for that, and the tokenization of financial instruments.
Legal validity is also granted to smart contracts. So the reason why I think that this has long reaching, implications here is that the Panama is where the Panama Canal is. If you want to get from the Atlantic over to the Pacific or from the Pacific over to the Atlantic as a boat, shipping goods and services, you're going to use the Panama Canal. Almost nobody goes around the Horn of, the Horn of, what do they call it? It's not Cape Of Good Hope. That's the the very bottom end of South America, and it's really treacherous. That's why they built the Panama Canal in the first place. But if you've got and so there's the Panama Canal. Right? That's the only bridge between the two major oceans of the world. But here's the other thing.
If you're moving from any country in South America North, you have to go through Panama. So Panama actually bottlenecks both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean as well as South America to North America. You have to go through Panama. Whether you're going east or west, from north or south, you're going through Panama. And if Panama adopts this, then there's gonna be a lot of people that are going to be, well, subjected to being able to use Bitcoin and I I find that I kind of find that fascinating. I did not expect Panama to step up to the plate so soon but clearly they have. So let's run the numbers.
Futures and commodities, No. Trump did not say the word tariff or at least not today as far as I know. But what did happen is that inflation numbers came out and inflation is not under control. So the Dow has tumbled 600 points. Oil is following suit. It's down one and a quarter percent to $69.00 6. Brent Norcey is down a point to $73.34. Natural gas, doing its thing, is up 1.3% to $3.97. Gasoline down point 84% to $2.22 a gallon. Gold doing well today, hitting a huge all time high after an almost 1% gain, $3,118.
Congratulations, Peter Schiff. I'm I'm proud of you, my boy. Half a point down for silver. Platinum is down point 3%. Copper is up five or no. Half a percent, but palladium is down a third. Now for the ag futures, mostly in the green today, biggest winner looks to be chocolate, point 88% to the upside. Biggest loser is wheat, one and a third to the downside. Live cattle is down a half. Lean hogs crawling sideways. Feeder cattle are down over a half point. And here's where the indices come into play. You ready for this? Hold on to your ass. The Dow is down one and a half percent. 634 points to the downside.
S and P is down 1.79%. You think the Nasdaq escaped? Nope. It's the worst loser of the day, 2.5% to the downside. S and P Mini, one point eight nine percent to the downside. Nobody liked the inflation numbers that hit today. Not a single person. And yet I still hear talk that they're expecting a rate cut from the Fed sometime in July. The more these numbers look this way, the less and less likely that's going to be. There there is just that's just the way this is going to work. Now if they do if they do anything, they're just going to keep the rates where they are.
The United States debt cannot afford a rate point increase, but you never know, man. Crazier crazier shit has happened, but I don't expect them to raise rates, But I also don't expect them to to lower them unless over the next couple of months, we start seeing some turnaround numbers. And remember, April is Trump's tariff day. That's what we're that's what a lot of people have been waiting for. Right? A lot of people are waiting for because that's when the so called tariffs that have been suggested, quote, unquote, go into effect. Will there be stays on the execution of these tariffs? I don't know. Will some of them go through and others not? That's probably that's my guess. That's my gut feeling.
But something is gonna be installed on April, but we won't know until April. And, therefore, nobody, as usual, knows what the hell to do with their money, not even in Bitcoin where we're seeing a massive loss back down to $84,010. That is a $1,670,000,000,000 market cap, and we can only get 27.2 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our one Bitcoin point of which there are 19,843,069.68 of, but average fees remain low. 0.04 BTC taken in fees on a per block basis. There are, well, I don't know, about 34 blocks, carrying out 15,000 unconfirmed transactions.
High priority rates gonna get your transaction in at 5 Satoshis per vByte. Low priority is gonna get you in at three. I'm still not seeing miner capitulation. We are now up to 860.3 exahashes per second. Nobody is taking their miners offline. Why? Why? Is it possible that this time, the miners actually made good bets as to what was going to occur with the Bitcoin price and didn't get overextended? That's what I think is happening. I that's really what I think is happening is that they they've learned after two cycles of of of us having major mining pools that they're like, you know, maybe we shouldn't bar use our Bitcoin to borrow against for cash to buy a whole shitload of miners.
Yeah. Maybe that's what's going on. But, anyway, from tornado crash, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and baked potato gave me 10,000 satoshis and says you truly understand value for value. Boost for being a badass MF. Thank you, baked potato. I appreciate that. Perma nerd with 234 sat says maple trade creates syrup from the nectar of maple tree. None You Bidness creates podcast from the nectar of common sense. Psyduck with five seventy two says psyduck. Yodle with 444 says, great ways. Pies with a hundred says, hashtag 40 h p w. And then he comes back with another hundred and says, thank you, sir. No, thank you. That's the weather report.
Welcome to part two of the news you can use. OpenSats announces the tenth wave of grants. We're excited to introduce our latest wave of grants supporting seven innovative projects that showcase the growing versatility of the Nostra ecosystem, announced the organization. This round of funding includes four first time Nostra grant recipients and renewed support for three others. So ChachiChat or sorry. Chachi Chat, c h a c h I C h a t. Chachi Chat, a mobile friendly relay based Nostra Group chat client that efficiently supports various content types, including text, polls, and custom emojis with future plans for video, audio, wikis, and calendar events.
Zapstore is a permissionless app store built on Nostr. It empowers developers to cryptographically sign and distribute releases via the Nostr protocol. Users can verify binaries, recommend apps, and make bitcoin payments. It supports Tor, accountless use, and local first architecture for offline functionality. A command line tool allows cross platform app publishing and package management. And then there's HyperNote, a protocol for interpreting hypermedia on Nostr following a, quote, dumb relay smart client design. It stores HTML like content and interactions as events on relays with clients responsible for maintaining, reconstructing, and interpreting the state.
Then finally, nostr epoxy is a paid web socket proxy for Nostra that connects users to relays and services like cache u ments. It bypasses network restrictions and censorship by bridging various networks including Tor and I two p. Now the following projects are receiving renewed support. So future FUTR is an upcoming Nostra desktop and mobile client written in Haskell and QT five for private groups and private messaging. Npub. Cache provides a privacy preserving Lightning address without registration by combining Cashew, Nostr, and the Lightning Network.
NoteDeck is a multiplatform Nostra client inspired by TweetDeck. It features a modular dashboard with customizable columns allowing users to manage multiple accounts and view timelines, notifications, direct messages, and bookmarks from a single interface. And NoteDeck is being done by j b fifty five. They should have said that on there, but they didn't. So I'm telling you that the same guy that's made, Domus for us is making NoteDeck. I've tried a couple of the first iterations and it's pretty slick, man. Pretty slick. Now onto proposed bipartisan legislation recognizes Bitcoin as a technology that supports democracy, And Frank Korva, out of Bitcoin Magazine, one of my favorite writers, is writing this one on Wednesday.
The office of representative Gabe AMO issued a press release stating that rep AMO and rep Kim introduced a bipartisan resolution supporting the use of distributed ledger technologies, including blockchain, to, quote, support democratic governance, human rights, freedom of information, transparency, and innovation around the world, end quote. The resolution urges federal agencies to explore it and support distributed ledger technologies and express expresses congress' commitment to advancing responsible innovation on this technological front. Representative Kim commented on the importance of this technology, quote, US leadership is emerging technologies like blockchain not only improves Americans' lives, but also helps us advance transparency in US foreign assistance, human rights, and freedom across the globe.
Quote, this legislation is vital, especially as we see the Chinese Communist Party exporting its surveillance technologies and authoritarianism abroad. I am proud to join congressman AMO to lead this bipartisan resolution to ensure that The United States shines as a beacon of hope, freedom, and innovation on the world stage. That's some political speak right there. The press release also cited how in Screven County, Georgia, the Bitcoin blockchain was used to safeguard election results and provide transparency to voters linking to this article which tells the story of the event. Simple proof, the company that helped Screven County Officials commit its vote tallies to the immutable Bitcoin blockchain also recently helped Republicans in Williams County, Tennessee do the same with the results of its Republican leadership vote.
Simple proof put itself on the map would it help to secure the results of the most recent presidential election in Guatemala, the story of which is told in the short documentary, Immutable Democracy. Thanks to the vote tallies from the election being safeguarded on the Bitcoin blockchain, the integrity of the election was upheld despite efforts made to tamper with physical votes once voting had concluded. The work that the company has done in both, has done both in The US and abroad is a testament to a point representative AMO made in the press release, quote, innovative technology like blockchain helps promote transparency and strengthens democratic institutions around the world, said the congressman.
While the press release provided evidence of the Bitcoin blockchain being used to preserve democratic values, it did not differentiate between Bitcoin and other blockchains, many of which, by design, are less secure. Actually, that would be all of them if if they even have them. In so many cases, we found, like, OneCoin had a blockchain. No. It didn't. It was a spreadsheet. It was just a ledger, man. Anyway, so, yeah, if you did not know about simple proof, yeah, it's using open time stamps is one of the ways that that simple proof is able to leverage the Bitcoin blockchain technology, to make sure that this voting stuff is is transparent. So it's but it's good that we've got bipartisan, which means that a Democratic person and a Republican person, one in California and the other one's from Rhode Island, so pretty representative.
Right? Like, all the way across the country and on both side of the aisles, they're saying that Bitcoin as a technology supports democracy and want to see that enshrined in some kind of legislative text. Now onto senator Lummis who says that the strategic Bitcoin reserve could have The US debt as in have it, you know, cut it in half. That's such a weird word. At the DC Blockchain Summit, senator Cynthia Lummis emphasized how Bitcoin, due to its scarcity, immutability, and durability, represents a strategic asset for long term national stability. Quote, if we hold Bitcoin for twenty years, according to the best available models, we could cut our national debt in half, she stated referring to the $36,000,000,000,000 United States debt.
Through the Bitcoin Act, Lummis proposed the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve highlighting that it should be treated similarly to existing national reserves. The Senator stated, quote, we have a strategic petroleum reserve. We have a strategic gold reserve. We have a strategic cheese reserve. Bitcoin is digital gold. Yes. If you did not know, The United States has a strategic cheese reserve. I just found out about that a couple of years ago. Never even heard about it before, but apparently, it's legit. We keep cheese, a lot of it, in storage for a rainy day. I don't know why, but we do.
Now here's here as as usual, I've I have an issue. I would like to know more about the best available models because what happens to $36,000,000,000,000 that we have today in twenty years? I mean, what what model are you using that mean that says you're going to cut the I mean, let's say let let's say this. Sure. We got $36,000,000,000,000 in debt, and holding Bitcoin for twenty years will have the debt. What good is that if we end up with $72,000,000,000,000 in debt in twenty years? And the the debt that we carry today literally doubles.
We're right having that, we're right back to $36,000,000,000,000 in debt. And why would it increase? Because of interest rates. The the the the debt is it's impossible to pay back. I I like Cynthia Lummis. I really do, but I I think this is more just political posturing than anything else when she talks about Bitcoin's going to help us with The United States debt. Hell, I hope she's right. I really do, but I I I don't know, man. It seems a little dicey to me. Alright. Onto France where French people drink wine and eat croissants and apparently smoke cigarettes.
French State Bank b p I can't pronounce it. BPI France, I guess, is how you pronounce it. It's like all one word, but they plan a €25,000,000 crypto fund to invest directly into digital assets supporting French companies. This is the block written by James Hunt. State owned French public investment bank, Banque Public d'Investement, which is also known as BPI France, announced the acceleration of its crypto investment strategy outlining plans to invest up to €25,000,000 or $27,000,000 in digital assets to support French companies and venture capitalists in the industry. BPI France described the initiative as pioneering among sovereign wealth funds on a global scale supported by the Ministry of Economy and Finance according to a translation of the statement from the bank on Thursday.
BPI France will directly invest in new blockchain linked business models. God, you're gonna lose your ass, aren't you? With a strong French presence, including decentralized finance, decentralized physical infrastructure networks, also known as deepens, tokenization, staking, and restaking. Wow. Layer one, two, and three chains, artificial intelligence, and identity verification receiving tokens rather than equity. Okay. Just pausing to say, how much spaghetti can you throw against the wall to see what sticks? This is like a basket of kittens. They're just hucking over the cliff to see which one survives. This is ridiculous.
These investments will be in addition to innovation grants, loans, and equity investments from BPI France's digital venture, large venture, and French touch capital funds, it said. The public investment bank added that being able to invest directly in digital assets marks a significant advancement for BPI France. It will allow it to hold tokens listed on decentralized financial markets and enhance its expertise in asset tokenization and liquidity management via blockchain technology. I smell bullshit. With the acceleration of its token investment strategy, BPI France reaffirms its commitment and strengthens its support for the development of French players in the digital asset economy operating within the European regulatory framework. We are convinced of the growing importance of these players in the coming years and want to increase the competitiveness and the French presence in the digital asset field, end quote.
In a separate press briefing, Cadou explained the ability to make direct token investments became much more urgent in light of The United States acceleration of crypto strategies. Bloomberg reported with France keen not to be left behind, quote, the new United States policy is creating massive attractivity for all crypto companies from across the world, Cadu said. We want to keep those companies here because we strongly believe that it's very important in the future to have our own ecosystem, end quote. Pro crypto president Trump has announced a slew of proposals in recent months designed to make America, quote, the crypto capital of the world.
Well, okay. So there you go. Alright. Okay. It just like I said, it's like throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. But then it made it totally made sense when I read that sentence where see. Where was it? Hold on. Yeah. When Kadu said the following, the new US policy is creating massive attractivity for all crypto companies across the world, and we want to keep those companies here. That's why they're throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks. They're they're they're in panic mode. They need France needs somebody like this bank to step up to the plate and just unleash a torrent of money to figure out how they're going to compete because sadly, for the rest of these idiots out there, Trump beat them to the punch, man.
He pulled the trigger first and generally in a gunfight that means you win, dude. Alright. Spot Bitcoin ETFs. Report the tenth straight day of net inflows according to an analyst that says Bitcoin demand persists. Danny Park writing for the block. Spot Bitcoin exchange traded funds in The United States extended their positive flow for ten days on Thursday, marking the longest inflow run since December of last year. And this suggests that while institutions are not aggressively risk on, there is still demand for Bitcoin exposure in the market according to Minh Zhong, analyst of Presto Research.
On Thursday, the Bitcoin ETFs had a total daily net inflow of $89,000,000 according to so so value data. Fidelity's FBTC drove inflows with 97,140,000.00 joining the fund, while BlackRock's iBit also saw close to $4,000,000 in inflows. On the other hand, Invesco's BTCO saw nearly $7,000,000 leave the fund along with outflows of $5,000,000 from WisdomTree's BTCW. However, the amount of inflows in the past ten trading days remain relatively modest, Young of Presto said. Crypto and the wider equities market have experienced heightened volatility and decline after president Donald Trump's first announcement of stringent tariff policies on foreign countries.
While investors have since gained back some confidence on belief that Trump's tariffs won't be as rampant, the still unfolding policies continue to weigh down market sentiment. And during the ten day run, the fund saw $1,060,000,000 in inflows smaller than the single day inflows seen on January. The crypto analyst also pointed out the divergence inflows between Bitcoin ETFs and Ether ETFs. Spot Ether ETFs have seen net outflows on all but two days since February. Quote, this contrast highlights a clear difference in investor conviction between Bitcoin and Ethereum, Zheng said.
Okay. Well, you know what? Let's go look at TradingView because it's time to to look in on the ETH or the BTC ETH pair. Let's see. Where's my pair? There it is. And Ether has made a new all time low against Bitcoin since let me I gotta pull it back to the weeks my my chart to the weeks to find it. Let's see. The last time the ETHBTC price was the at this rate was on May of twenty twenty. So we're coming up on five years. You're you're looking at almost five years of nothing but decline. Ether in value and purchasing power has done nothing but decline against the purchasing power of Bitcoin. If for whatever reason you think this is going to turn around, I don't think so.
I don't think it's I don't think it's healthy for anybody to stay in Ethereum at this point. Alright. So just get out. Leave. Leave. Now on to brains, b c b 1 hundred. That's the Bitcoin control board for their for miners, and they've open sourced the board. This is I'm talking about the physical board. Right? They've open sourced the plans so that you can make your own brains b c b 100 board. And they say we've we've just open sourced the b c b 100 on GitHub. The brains control board is now officially the Bitcoin control board. Bitcoin mining infrastructure needs more transparency and resilience, and this is how we accelerate that mission.
The resources that come with the control board include open WERT based firmware with full configuration, Linux support for all mining peripherals, source code for TFA, U boot and Linux kernel, and open WERT, a Nix shell environment for reproducible builds, and the same mining binaries as those used in the official Brains OS release. The software is available under the GPL version three open source license, while the hardware component is available under CERN open hardware license. The firmware does not include the mining component, but it does provide all the necessary tools for users to create their own mining firmware.
Brains OS is not part of this release. We're sending a few BCB one hundred boards to Bitcoin Park in Nashville for builders to explore and experiment with. A few units will also be available soon on the Brain Store, shipping fast from our US and EU warehouses with no customs hassles, Brain said in an announcement. Wow. So their entire control board that they use to replace the control boards inside of, like, Antminers, they've actually open sourced the whole damn thing. So if you're interested, all you have to do is go to the show notes. Everything that I've talked about today has a URL in the show notes. This is gonna be last on the list.
Just click it and then you'll be able to click it onto the GitHub repository that they have provided inside so you can go see this stuff for yourself. And with that, well, shoot. That's all I got, man. It's Friday. Everything is crashing down around us, so y'all be careful out there, and I will 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 09:03AM Pacific Daylight Time. It is the March 2025 and this is episode ten sixty four of Bitcoin and I got a lot to cover so we're jumping right in. Tether pours capital into media and agriculture companies amid an investment spree. Liz Napolitano decrypt. I just, this is so weird they're getting into agriculture. I mean, honestly, it actually makes sense, but it's just not something I would have expected from Tether. Anyway, they revealed on Thursday that Tether is investing in a pair of firms unrelated at all to the crypto industry, continuing an investment spree that has only intensified since the company reported record profits earlier this year.
The El Salvador based company snapped up 49,000 no. 49,596,510 shares of Latin American focused agricultural firm, Adeccorago. Wait. Acura Curagra. Adecc agro or something like that. It's oh, I know. Adecco agro growing at stake in the business to 70% according to an SEC filing published on Thursday. So Tether now owns 70% of an agricultural firm based out of Latin America. Quote, our investment aligns with Tether's broader strategy of back infrastructure, technology, and backing businesses that advance economic freedom and resilience, especially in regions where these values are most needed, Paolo Ordano, CEO of Tether, said in a statement. Adecco Agro is a sustainable production company with interest in Argentina, Brazil, and they say Argentina twice. So I I don't know. I guess just Argentina and Brazil.
Separately, Ardoino announced on Twitter that his company would be investing in Italian media company, BeWater. By the March, Tether will hold 30.4% stake in the company via a £10,000,000 capital increase in equity acquisition, quote, while often media companies are bullied into kneeling to sponsor narratives simply to survive, Tether's investment in BeWater ensures that the group will continue to remain solid, visionary, and especially independent, Paolo wrote in a Twitter post. The private company's latest investment comes a few months after it reported record smashing profits in 02/2024. Tether said that in January, its yearly net profits hit a new all time high of more than $13,000,000,000, citing an assurance opinion for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four issued by global accounting firm BDO.
The stablecoin issuer also reported $7,000,000,000 in excess capital. That's, like, almost twice as much as what GameStop has chilling out on their books right now. Tether has used its funds over the past few months to increase its stake in the Bitcoin mining company, BitDeer, in addition to upping it upping its controls of companies such as video platform, Rumble, and the Italian football club, Juventus. Last year, it also invested 19,000,000 in x r no. Ex Rex Group, a firm that also has backing from the Taiwanese government national development fund. USDT is the third largest cryptocurrency and the largest stablecoin in the world with a market capitalization of $144,000,000,000 according to CoinGecko data.
The media company, I can see. I can definitely see them investing into a media company. The agricultural side, I think, is coming out of the fact that that the guys over at Tether, I say what you want about Tether. I don't use it because I don't need it, but I don't hate it. And the one of the reasons why I don't hate it is that the guys behind Tether are all solid Bitcoiners. I I can't find any evidence where they're shitting all over Bitcoin. So the Bitcoin ethos that that I came to know very, very quickly was all about resilience. It was all about, you know, anti fragility, that those kinds of things. And when I first got into Bitcoin, I dismissed. Well, when I first got into Bitcoin, it was after about a couple of slaps.
I knew about it. I dismissed it as, like, video game money, and I've seen video game economies just basically crash because of duplication bugs. But it wasn't until I started noticing that all the guys that were into Bitcoin at the time were talking they were talking about anti fragility and Nicholas Taleb and, resilience. And and these are the things that I had been hearing out of the same people that I was enamored with out of the permaculture and regenerative agriculture movement, which I was deep into be right before I got into Bitcoin. And it was that that caused me to go, wait a minute. These are the same guys.
If I respect these guys over here in regen ag and permaculture, then and these guys over here in Bitcoin are talking about almost the exact same shit, then that is something I should probably be looking at. And I did. And I'm never looked back, and I'm happy for it. But this brings me back to agriculture. There's so many people in Bitcoin that are interested in ranching, in agriculture, in high quality food, in nutrient dense food. This actually makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, on the surface, it doesn't, but if you crawl underneath and you go back in time and listen to what Paolo, Ardoino, and the other guys over at Tether were saying at the very beginnings, right before they started Tether and right when they were starting it, you you come to realize that they were part of that same crew that was talking about antifragility, resilience, They're fascinated with nutrient dense food, so the ag side actually makes a whole lot of sense.
And keeping on track with the fact that I've been talking about stablecoins and their what their impact is going to be whether you like it or not. A, they're not going away. B, they're gonna get stronger. C, no, they don't replace Bitcoin. Bitcoin backs this whole thing at one at one stage or another, and then you'll say no, it's treasury bonds. Yeah. I I know. I get that. I'm just talking about the underlying structure of where we're all headed is backed by Bitcoin. That said, this is at a zero hedge. Crypto Fund Manager says this is the single largest arbitrage in human history.
Investors from both traditional finance and the crypto world are increasingly aligning on the view that stablecoins represents one of the most significant business opportunities in a generation. Such is the belief of Kyle Samani, managing partner of Multicoin Capital, who recently said that stablecoins will likely turn out to be quote the single largest arbitrage in human history. Quote there's 8,000,000,000 people on the planet. If you could go to each of those 8,000,000,000 people and ask them if they can denominate their wealth in any asset like gold, Apple stock, s and p €500, yen, whatever you want, my suspicion is if you went and asked everyone in the world and they could answer the question without fear of political persecution, I suspect five to seven billion of them would say United States dollars, Samani said during a recent panel discussion at Digital Asset Summit twenty twenty five in New York City.
Quote, it's like probably the single largest arbitrage ever in human history, and it's just going to get those people what they want. The crypto investor and venture capital capitalist added, quote, if you think that's what they want, then give it to them. And crypto rails are going to be the mechanism by which you do so. And so I think there's a massive opportunity to get stablecoins in the hands of billions of people. Stablecoins are experiencing rapid growth due to their unique ability to combine the stability of traditional fiat currencies with the efficiency and accessibility of blockchain technology.
Oh, I love this part. Unlike volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, stablecoins are pegged to assets such as the US dollar, offering a reliable store of value that appeals to both retail and institutional investors. Their use cases are vast and expanding. They enable fast low cost cross border payments bypassing the inefficiencies of traditional banking systems. They serve as a bridge between fiat and crypto markets facilitating seamless trading on exchanges, and they power decentralized finance platforms where you can lend, borrow, and earn interest without intermediaries. Additionally, stablecoins are increasingly adopted in real world applications such as remittances, micropayments, and even as a hedge against inflation in countries with unstable currencies.
On chain data highlight a remarkable rise in Ethereum's stablecoin supply peaking at a record breaking $132,400,000,000 Tether and USD coin lead the pack, forming the lion's share of the stablecoin volume on this blockchain. As of 03/24/2025, USDT on Ethereum surpassed 75,000,000,000 with USDC trailing at just above 39,000,000,000. Additional stablecoins like USDE, USDS, DAI, FDUSD, and PiUSD contributed 5,390,000,000.00, 4 point 4 9 billion, 2 point 9 billion, 2 billion, and 714,000,000 respectively. In another feed of the stablecoin space, Tether CEO, Paulo Ardoino, recently revealed that the company purchased more US treasuries than Canada, retaining $33,100,000,000 of United States government debt.
Last week, the senate banking committee approved the guiding and establishing national innovation for US Stablecoins act of 2025 known as the Genius Act. With a bipartisan vote of 18 to six, advancing it out of committee, president Trump has voiced his intent to sign payment stablecoin legislation into law sometime this year. Let's go back. Now, yes, there was even I was cringing as I was reading that, so you're not alone. Right? Because it sounds like well, actually, it doesn't sound like it's clear that the person writing this does not fully understand at all what stablecoins actually mean nor the relationship that stablecoins have always had and will continue to have with Bitcoin.
Sure, Bitcoin's volatile. This person is suggesting that stablecoins and it's a very slight suggestion, but this person is suggesting that stablecoins are are better at remittances. Okay. From a rail standpoint and from a volatility standpoint, you're right. But that's not really the problem, is it? These stablecoins are backed by the US dollar, which has turned into a debt instrument. It's not really money anymore. Well, I mean, it it acts like money. It does what money is supposed to do for the time being, but it's rapidly and has rapidly become not as much money as it is a representation of massive amounts of amounts of unpayable debt.
So the stablecoin mechanism is one thing, but the value that makes the stablecoin or rather the stablecoin carries with it the essence of that which it is backed by. And in this case, it's only backed by the continual issuance of United States debt. And and what, Kyle Samani was saying is that we're going to export all these stablecoins to five to 7,000,000,000 people of the world. Okay. Well, what it really means is that we're going to export The United States' debt to five to 7,000,000,000 people across the world. That's not sustainable.
I'm sorry. I don't care. Do oh, you're you're so you got your PhD in economics where? I didn't. And for anybody asking, you can go pound sand. This is not rocket science. It's not that hard. This is a mechanism to make the rest of the world as poor as humanly possible and as fast as economically possible. The only thing that comes in to actually backstop all of this nonsense is the existence of bitcoin. And at one point or another, people are going to stop fooling around with making other people poor because it doesn't really help you. You might think you got rich, but it's not really going to help you when you've got a a view of nothing but poverty.
No one wants to see it. It doesn't do your heart any good. It crushes your soul. And the more people that become poor and barn mice is the more chance you've got of seeing nothing but just devastation when you look out of the windows of your huge mansion. Nobody wants it. It's not good for the soul. So understand that these people that are writing this particular zero hedge piece don't really understand what's actually occurring. And if you were looking at Meta Planet stock last night on the weekly candles, you would have seen a 90% drawdown.
Yes. Meta Planet crashed by 90%. No. Not not not really. It it at first at first, we were thinking that it was a it was just a a, like, data like, really, really terrible data that got fed into TradingView, which is the charting one of the main, chart programs that people use in in this space and and, honestly, a lot of other spaces now too. But it just it was a 90% gamble of the downside. What happened is this. Meta Planet is set to do a 10 to one stock split, and it looks like some somehow or another data got fed, which increased the normal price of what Meta Planet was by 10 times, but then the candle also reflected as as that it would that it had fallen to its actual price of a share after a tenfold increase in what it normally would have cost. If you don't understand any of that, let me let me explain it to you through this CoinDesk article, Bitcoin focused Meta Planet to spit or split stock 10 to one after a 3900% price surge, Francisco Rodriguez is riding it.
Following a rocketing higher in its stock price since the beginning to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet less than a year ago, Meta Planet has announced a 10 to one stock split to take effect on April, which we are not close to yet. That's just a that's a few days away, but that what happened last night is not April 1. Right? So the Tokyo based firm first started buying Bitcoin in April of twenty twenty four and since has accumulated 2,031 tokens worth nearly 200,000,000. The purchases were the driving factor in Meta Planet being the best performing Japanese equity over the past twelve months with a gain of 3900%. That price rise has created a substantial financial burden for investors, the company said in a press release announcing the split.
To address this, we have decided to conduct a stock split to lower the price per trading unit, thereby improving liquidity, expanding our investor base, and strengthening our connection with a broader range of shareholders, the company continued. Alright. So it doesn't get at all into, like, this this weird looking candle that that we all saw last night. So it looks like what happened was that TradingView's data that was being fed to it, wherever wherever TradingView gets its data from, right, that the data being fed to it last night represented the stock split, but at the same time also represented the actual share price after it it I know. It's it's bizarre.
But what I'm wondering about is how did they get a hold of the data? What what what hap what broke? Because I've read two stories where the stock was to split March 20 or or actually, if I go and I'll actually, I didn't read a story. I was actually looking back at the Meta Planet chart, and it showed a stock split at the bottom of the screen that occurred on March. And as far as I know, that's not what's occurring. We're supposed to see the stock split on April. So if any of you other people out there got confused about what the hell was going on with Meta Planet, then, yeah, that's what's going on. I think it was just, like, data that should not have been released accidentally got released.
And if you feel like you've been dirtied or sullied somehow by the fact that I really botched trying to explain that to you, you can clean up with handmade tallow soap. Circle p is open for business. Soap miner makes some of the best soaps. I have his soap. He actually shipped me some soap for me to try. It's badass. I I it's clean. It does its job, and the and there is a version of it that has no dyes, no, like, sense. It's just it's called rustic tallow and it's got three ingredients, 100% beef tallow, lye, and distilled water. These are all tallow or beef fat made soaps.
There's soap always has fat in it. And the ones that you get at the grocery store, god only knows, they may be using canola oil for the fat base. I have no idea. I'm uninterested in anything but really high quality soap, and you can get yours at soapminer.com. That's soapminer.com. Again, that's s0apminer.com, and make sure when you order that in the notes section, you say I heard about it on the circle p, and that would allow SoapMiner to make a decision as to whether or not he feels that me making a sale of his soap for him on the in the circle p on the Bitcoin and podcast is worth some Satoshis, which, hopefully, he will cut to me because, hopefully, you go and buy his soap.
Plebs making Plebs happy is what the Circle p is all about. Now on to South Carolina, they've dismissed its staking lawsuit against Coinbase, apparently reflecting what Vermont's doing. Braden Lindria from Cointelegraph, South Carolina has become the latest US state to dismiss its lawsuit against Coinbase over its staking services, which had accused the crypto exchange of offering unregistered securities. The lawsuit was officially dismissed in a joint stipulation between the crypto exchange and the South Carolina Attorney General's Securities Division on March.
South Carolina just joined Vermont to dismiss its unfounded staking lawsuit against Coinbase, said the firm's chief legal officer, Paul Gruel. South Carolina and Vermont were two of the 10 US states that took legal action against Coinbase's staking services back in June of twenty twenty three, the same, day that the federal securities regulator filed its lawsuit against the crypto exchange. The Securities and Exchange Commission officially dismissed that lawsuit on February 2025. The other eight US states that filed enforcement action similar to South Carolina were Alabama, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington, and Wisconsin. Gruel said he hoped to see other states follow suit and that South Carolina residents lost an estimated $2,000,000 in staking rewards as a result of the lawsuit.
The 52,000,000 Americans who own crypto deserve common sense consumer protections and clear rules. We applaud South Carolina for standing up for justice and hope the remaining states or states with bans on staking will take notice. Meanwhile, and this is, like, related but has nothing to do with Coinbase. We're just talking about South Carolina. South Carolina has introduced a Bitcoin reserve bill of their own. A state lawmaker has just introduced the Strategic Digital Assets Reserve Act of South Carolina of March on March, which could see the state treasurer allocate up to 10% of certain state funds to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
Unlike most US state crypto reserve bills, North Carolina's house bill 4,256 introduced by representative Jordan Pace mentioned Bitcoin on several occasions for the strategic digital asset reserve that the bill seeks to establish. The bill allows South Carolina's treasurer, currently Curtis Loftus, to establish a Bitcoin reserve that exceeds no more than 1,000,000 Bitcoin, a high ceiling that the US federal government is also looking to reach or exceed with its recently established strategic Bitcoin reserve. The treasurer would be able to add Bitcoin to South Carolina's general fund, the budget stabilization reserve fund, and any other investment fund that they manage.
So there you go. Now this is this is gonna be interesting, I think. I think it's gonna have some some ramifications for the future. Panama, the country, Panama, they've introduced a bill to regulate cryptocurrency payments. Panama has introduced a bill to regulate cryptocurrencies, aiming to create a clear legal framework for the use of digital assets in financial transactions. The proposed regulation includes licensing requirements for crypto service providers and compliance measures in line with international financial standards. The bill will now be discussed in the committees of the National Assembly where it may undergo changes before the final vote. And if approved, Panama would position itself as one of the most advanced countries in Latin America in terms of cryptocurrency regulation.
One of the central points of the regulation is the legal recognition of digital assets as a payment tool. This means that citizens and businesses can freely agree to use bitcoin, shitcoin number one, and stablecoins in their commercial transactions and civil contracts. The use of cryptocurrencies will be allowed for purchasing goods and services, paying debts, and other financial operations as long as both parties agree. The bill introduces specific regulations for virtual asset service providers including custody platforms, exchanges, and cryptocurrency wallets.
Operators will need to register in a national database, oh, great, managed by the financial analysis unit, and obtain official authorization to operate in the country. Moreover, they will need to comply with know your customer and anti money laundering regulations following the guidelines of those idiots at the financial action Task Force that nobody elected. Those who fail to adhere to the rules will face administrative or criminal penalties. In addition to cryptocurrency regulation in Panama, the bill also proposes the use of blockchain technology in public administration, and the goal would be to improve bureaucratic efficiency and ensure greater transparency through digital identity systems, so watch out for that, and the tokenization of financial instruments.
Legal validity is also granted to smart contracts. So the reason why I think that this has long reaching, implications here is that the Panama is where the Panama Canal is. If you want to get from the Atlantic over to the Pacific or from the Pacific over to the Atlantic as a boat, shipping goods and services, you're going to use the Panama Canal. Almost nobody goes around the Horn of, the Horn of, what do they call it? It's not Cape Of Good Hope. That's the the very bottom end of South America, and it's really treacherous. That's why they built the Panama Canal in the first place. But if you've got and so there's the Panama Canal. Right? That's the only bridge between the two major oceans of the world. But here's the other thing.
If you're moving from any country in South America North, you have to go through Panama. So Panama actually bottlenecks both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean as well as South America to North America. You have to go through Panama. Whether you're going east or west, from north or south, you're going through Panama. And if Panama adopts this, then there's gonna be a lot of people that are going to be, well, subjected to being able to use Bitcoin and I I find that I kind of find that fascinating. I did not expect Panama to step up to the plate so soon but clearly they have. So let's run the numbers.
Futures and commodities, No. Trump did not say the word tariff or at least not today as far as I know. But what did happen is that inflation numbers came out and inflation is not under control. So the Dow has tumbled 600 points. Oil is following suit. It's down one and a quarter percent to $69.00 6. Brent Norcey is down a point to $73.34. Natural gas, doing its thing, is up 1.3% to $3.97. Gasoline down point 84% to $2.22 a gallon. Gold doing well today, hitting a huge all time high after an almost 1% gain, $3,118.
Congratulations, Peter Schiff. I'm I'm proud of you, my boy. Half a point down for silver. Platinum is down point 3%. Copper is up five or no. Half a percent, but palladium is down a third. Now for the ag futures, mostly in the green today, biggest winner looks to be chocolate, point 88% to the upside. Biggest loser is wheat, one and a third to the downside. Live cattle is down a half. Lean hogs crawling sideways. Feeder cattle are down over a half point. And here's where the indices come into play. You ready for this? Hold on to your ass. The Dow is down one and a half percent. 634 points to the downside.
S and P is down 1.79%. You think the Nasdaq escaped? Nope. It's the worst loser of the day, 2.5% to the downside. S and P Mini, one point eight nine percent to the downside. Nobody liked the inflation numbers that hit today. Not a single person. And yet I still hear talk that they're expecting a rate cut from the Fed sometime in July. The more these numbers look this way, the less and less likely that's going to be. There there is just that's just the way this is going to work. Now if they do if they do anything, they're just going to keep the rates where they are.
The United States debt cannot afford a rate point increase, but you never know, man. Crazier crazier shit has happened, but I don't expect them to raise rates, But I also don't expect them to to lower them unless over the next couple of months, we start seeing some turnaround numbers. And remember, April is Trump's tariff day. That's what we're that's what a lot of people have been waiting for. Right? A lot of people are waiting for because that's when the so called tariffs that have been suggested, quote, unquote, go into effect. Will there be stays on the execution of these tariffs? I don't know. Will some of them go through and others not? That's probably that's my guess. That's my gut feeling.
But something is gonna be installed on April, but we won't know until April. And, therefore, nobody, as usual, knows what the hell to do with their money, not even in Bitcoin where we're seeing a massive loss back down to $84,010. That is a $1,670,000,000,000 market cap, and we can only get 27.2 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our one Bitcoin point of which there are 19,843,069.68 of, but average fees remain low. 0.04 BTC taken in fees on a per block basis. There are, well, I don't know, about 34 blocks, carrying out 15,000 unconfirmed transactions.
High priority rates gonna get your transaction in at 5 Satoshis per vByte. Low priority is gonna get you in at three. I'm still not seeing miner capitulation. We are now up to 860.3 exahashes per second. Nobody is taking their miners offline. Why? Why? Is it possible that this time, the miners actually made good bets as to what was going to occur with the Bitcoin price and didn't get overextended? That's what I think is happening. I that's really what I think is happening is that they they've learned after two cycles of of of us having major mining pools that they're like, you know, maybe we shouldn't bar use our Bitcoin to borrow against for cash to buy a whole shitload of miners.
Yeah. Maybe that's what's going on. But, anyway, from tornado crash, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and baked potato gave me 10,000 satoshis and says you truly understand value for value. Boost for being a badass MF. Thank you, baked potato. I appreciate that. Perma nerd with 234 sat says maple trade creates syrup from the nectar of maple tree. None You Bidness creates podcast from the nectar of common sense. Psyduck with five seventy two says psyduck. Yodle with 444 says, great ways. Pies with a hundred says, hashtag 40 h p w. And then he comes back with another hundred and says, thank you, sir. No, thank you. That's the weather report.
Welcome to part two of the news you can use. OpenSats announces the tenth wave of grants. We're excited to introduce our latest wave of grants supporting seven innovative projects that showcase the growing versatility of the Nostra ecosystem, announced the organization. This round of funding includes four first time Nostra grant recipients and renewed support for three others. So ChachiChat or sorry. Chachi Chat, c h a c h I C h a t. Chachi Chat, a mobile friendly relay based Nostra Group chat client that efficiently supports various content types, including text, polls, and custom emojis with future plans for video, audio, wikis, and calendar events.
Zapstore is a permissionless app store built on Nostr. It empowers developers to cryptographically sign and distribute releases via the Nostr protocol. Users can verify binaries, recommend apps, and make bitcoin payments. It supports Tor, accountless use, and local first architecture for offline functionality. A command line tool allows cross platform app publishing and package management. And then there's HyperNote, a protocol for interpreting hypermedia on Nostr following a, quote, dumb relay smart client design. It stores HTML like content and interactions as events on relays with clients responsible for maintaining, reconstructing, and interpreting the state.
Then finally, nostr epoxy is a paid web socket proxy for Nostra that connects users to relays and services like cache u ments. It bypasses network restrictions and censorship by bridging various networks including Tor and I two p. Now the following projects are receiving renewed support. So future FUTR is an upcoming Nostra desktop and mobile client written in Haskell and QT five for private groups and private messaging. Npub. Cache provides a privacy preserving Lightning address without registration by combining Cashew, Nostr, and the Lightning Network.
NoteDeck is a multiplatform Nostra client inspired by TweetDeck. It features a modular dashboard with customizable columns allowing users to manage multiple accounts and view timelines, notifications, direct messages, and bookmarks from a single interface. And NoteDeck is being done by j b fifty five. They should have said that on there, but they didn't. So I'm telling you that the same guy that's made, Domus for us is making NoteDeck. I've tried a couple of the first iterations and it's pretty slick, man. Pretty slick. Now onto proposed bipartisan legislation recognizes Bitcoin as a technology that supports democracy, And Frank Korva, out of Bitcoin Magazine, one of my favorite writers, is writing this one on Wednesday.
The office of representative Gabe AMO issued a press release stating that rep AMO and rep Kim introduced a bipartisan resolution supporting the use of distributed ledger technologies, including blockchain, to, quote, support democratic governance, human rights, freedom of information, transparency, and innovation around the world, end quote. The resolution urges federal agencies to explore it and support distributed ledger technologies and express expresses congress' commitment to advancing responsible innovation on this technological front. Representative Kim commented on the importance of this technology, quote, US leadership is emerging technologies like blockchain not only improves Americans' lives, but also helps us advance transparency in US foreign assistance, human rights, and freedom across the globe.
Quote, this legislation is vital, especially as we see the Chinese Communist Party exporting its surveillance technologies and authoritarianism abroad. I am proud to join congressman AMO to lead this bipartisan resolution to ensure that The United States shines as a beacon of hope, freedom, and innovation on the world stage. That's some political speak right there. The press release also cited how in Screven County, Georgia, the Bitcoin blockchain was used to safeguard election results and provide transparency to voters linking to this article which tells the story of the event. Simple proof, the company that helped Screven County Officials commit its vote tallies to the immutable Bitcoin blockchain also recently helped Republicans in Williams County, Tennessee do the same with the results of its Republican leadership vote.
Simple proof put itself on the map would it help to secure the results of the most recent presidential election in Guatemala, the story of which is told in the short documentary, Immutable Democracy. Thanks to the vote tallies from the election being safeguarded on the Bitcoin blockchain, the integrity of the election was upheld despite efforts made to tamper with physical votes once voting had concluded. The work that the company has done in both, has done both in The US and abroad is a testament to a point representative AMO made in the press release, quote, innovative technology like blockchain helps promote transparency and strengthens democratic institutions around the world, said the congressman.
While the press release provided evidence of the Bitcoin blockchain being used to preserve democratic values, it did not differentiate between Bitcoin and other blockchains, many of which, by design, are less secure. Actually, that would be all of them if if they even have them. In so many cases, we found, like, OneCoin had a blockchain. No. It didn't. It was a spreadsheet. It was just a ledger, man. Anyway, so, yeah, if you did not know about simple proof, yeah, it's using open time stamps is one of the ways that that simple proof is able to leverage the Bitcoin blockchain technology, to make sure that this voting stuff is is transparent. So it's but it's good that we've got bipartisan, which means that a Democratic person and a Republican person, one in California and the other one's from Rhode Island, so pretty representative.
Right? Like, all the way across the country and on both side of the aisles, they're saying that Bitcoin as a technology supports democracy and want to see that enshrined in some kind of legislative text. Now onto senator Lummis who says that the strategic Bitcoin reserve could have The US debt as in have it, you know, cut it in half. That's such a weird word. At the DC Blockchain Summit, senator Cynthia Lummis emphasized how Bitcoin, due to its scarcity, immutability, and durability, represents a strategic asset for long term national stability. Quote, if we hold Bitcoin for twenty years, according to the best available models, we could cut our national debt in half, she stated referring to the $36,000,000,000,000 United States debt.
Through the Bitcoin Act, Lummis proposed the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve highlighting that it should be treated similarly to existing national reserves. The Senator stated, quote, we have a strategic petroleum reserve. We have a strategic gold reserve. We have a strategic cheese reserve. Bitcoin is digital gold. Yes. If you did not know, The United States has a strategic cheese reserve. I just found out about that a couple of years ago. Never even heard about it before, but apparently, it's legit. We keep cheese, a lot of it, in storage for a rainy day. I don't know why, but we do.
Now here's here as as usual, I've I have an issue. I would like to know more about the best available models because what happens to $36,000,000,000,000 that we have today in twenty years? I mean, what what model are you using that mean that says you're going to cut the I mean, let's say let let's say this. Sure. We got $36,000,000,000,000 in debt, and holding Bitcoin for twenty years will have the debt. What good is that if we end up with $72,000,000,000,000 in debt in twenty years? And the the debt that we carry today literally doubles.
We're right having that, we're right back to $36,000,000,000,000 in debt. And why would it increase? Because of interest rates. The the the the debt is it's impossible to pay back. I I like Cynthia Lummis. I really do, but I I think this is more just political posturing than anything else when she talks about Bitcoin's going to help us with The United States debt. Hell, I hope she's right. I really do, but I I I don't know, man. It seems a little dicey to me. Alright. Onto France where French people drink wine and eat croissants and apparently smoke cigarettes.
French State Bank b p I can't pronounce it. BPI France, I guess, is how you pronounce it. It's like all one word, but they plan a €25,000,000 crypto fund to invest directly into digital assets supporting French companies. This is the block written by James Hunt. State owned French public investment bank, Banque Public d'Investement, which is also known as BPI France, announced the acceleration of its crypto investment strategy outlining plans to invest up to €25,000,000 or $27,000,000 in digital assets to support French companies and venture capitalists in the industry. BPI France described the initiative as pioneering among sovereign wealth funds on a global scale supported by the Ministry of Economy and Finance according to a translation of the statement from the bank on Thursday.
BPI France will directly invest in new blockchain linked business models. God, you're gonna lose your ass, aren't you? With a strong French presence, including decentralized finance, decentralized physical infrastructure networks, also known as deepens, tokenization, staking, and restaking. Wow. Layer one, two, and three chains, artificial intelligence, and identity verification receiving tokens rather than equity. Okay. Just pausing to say, how much spaghetti can you throw against the wall to see what sticks? This is like a basket of kittens. They're just hucking over the cliff to see which one survives. This is ridiculous.
These investments will be in addition to innovation grants, loans, and equity investments from BPI France's digital venture, large venture, and French touch capital funds, it said. The public investment bank added that being able to invest directly in digital assets marks a significant advancement for BPI France. It will allow it to hold tokens listed on decentralized financial markets and enhance its expertise in asset tokenization and liquidity management via blockchain technology. I smell bullshit. With the acceleration of its token investment strategy, BPI France reaffirms its commitment and strengthens its support for the development of French players in the digital asset economy operating within the European regulatory framework. We are convinced of the growing importance of these players in the coming years and want to increase the competitiveness and the French presence in the digital asset field, end quote.
In a separate press briefing, Cadou explained the ability to make direct token investments became much more urgent in light of The United States acceleration of crypto strategies. Bloomberg reported with France keen not to be left behind, quote, the new United States policy is creating massive attractivity for all crypto companies from across the world, Cadu said. We want to keep those companies here because we strongly believe that it's very important in the future to have our own ecosystem, end quote. Pro crypto president Trump has announced a slew of proposals in recent months designed to make America, quote, the crypto capital of the world.
Well, okay. So there you go. Alright. Okay. It just like I said, it's like throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. But then it made it totally made sense when I read that sentence where see. Where was it? Hold on. Yeah. When Kadu said the following, the new US policy is creating massive attractivity for all crypto companies across the world, and we want to keep those companies here. That's why they're throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks. They're they're they're in panic mode. They need France needs somebody like this bank to step up to the plate and just unleash a torrent of money to figure out how they're going to compete because sadly, for the rest of these idiots out there, Trump beat them to the punch, man.
He pulled the trigger first and generally in a gunfight that means you win, dude. Alright. Spot Bitcoin ETFs. Report the tenth straight day of net inflows according to an analyst that says Bitcoin demand persists. Danny Park writing for the block. Spot Bitcoin exchange traded funds in The United States extended their positive flow for ten days on Thursday, marking the longest inflow run since December of last year. And this suggests that while institutions are not aggressively risk on, there is still demand for Bitcoin exposure in the market according to Minh Zhong, analyst of Presto Research.
On Thursday, the Bitcoin ETFs had a total daily net inflow of $89,000,000 according to so so value data. Fidelity's FBTC drove inflows with 97,140,000.00 joining the fund, while BlackRock's iBit also saw close to $4,000,000 in inflows. On the other hand, Invesco's BTCO saw nearly $7,000,000 leave the fund along with outflows of $5,000,000 from WisdomTree's BTCW. However, the amount of inflows in the past ten trading days remain relatively modest, Young of Presto said. Crypto and the wider equities market have experienced heightened volatility and decline after president Donald Trump's first announcement of stringent tariff policies on foreign countries.
While investors have since gained back some confidence on belief that Trump's tariffs won't be as rampant, the still unfolding policies continue to weigh down market sentiment. And during the ten day run, the fund saw $1,060,000,000 in inflows smaller than the single day inflows seen on January. The crypto analyst also pointed out the divergence inflows between Bitcoin ETFs and Ether ETFs. Spot Ether ETFs have seen net outflows on all but two days since February. Quote, this contrast highlights a clear difference in investor conviction between Bitcoin and Ethereum, Zheng said.
Okay. Well, you know what? Let's go look at TradingView because it's time to to look in on the ETH or the BTC ETH pair. Let's see. Where's my pair? There it is. And Ether has made a new all time low against Bitcoin since let me I gotta pull it back to the weeks my my chart to the weeks to find it. Let's see. The last time the ETHBTC price was the at this rate was on May of twenty twenty. So we're coming up on five years. You're you're looking at almost five years of nothing but decline. Ether in value and purchasing power has done nothing but decline against the purchasing power of Bitcoin. If for whatever reason you think this is going to turn around, I don't think so.
I don't think it's I don't think it's healthy for anybody to stay in Ethereum at this point. Alright. So just get out. Leave. Leave. Now on to brains, b c b 1 hundred. That's the Bitcoin control board for their for miners, and they've open sourced the board. This is I'm talking about the physical board. Right? They've open sourced the plans so that you can make your own brains b c b 100 board. And they say we've we've just open sourced the b c b 100 on GitHub. The brains control board is now officially the Bitcoin control board. Bitcoin mining infrastructure needs more transparency and resilience, and this is how we accelerate that mission.
The resources that come with the control board include open WERT based firmware with full configuration, Linux support for all mining peripherals, source code for TFA, U boot and Linux kernel, and open WERT, a Nix shell environment for reproducible builds, and the same mining binaries as those used in the official Brains OS release. The software is available under the GPL version three open source license, while the hardware component is available under CERN open hardware license. The firmware does not include the mining component, but it does provide all the necessary tools for users to create their own mining firmware.
Brains OS is not part of this release. We're sending a few BCB one hundred boards to Bitcoin Park in Nashville for builders to explore and experiment with. A few units will also be available soon on the Brain Store, shipping fast from our US and EU warehouses with no customs hassles, Brain said in an announcement. Wow. So their entire control board that they use to replace the control boards inside of, like, Antminers, they've actually open sourced the whole damn thing. So if you're interested, all you have to do is go to the show notes. Everything that I've talked about today has a URL in the show notes. This is gonna be last on the list.
Just click it and then you'll be able to click it onto the GitHub repository that they have provided inside so you can go see this stuff for yourself. And with that, well, shoot. That's all I got, man. It's Friday. Everything is crashing down around us, so y'all be careful out there, and I will 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.
Introduction and Episode Overview
Tether's Financial Moves and Bitcoin Mining
US Stablecoin Legislation and Global Impact
Market Reactions to Inflation and Tariff News
