Join me today for Episode 1091 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
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https://cointelegraph.com/news/texas-house-committee-passes-bitcoin-reserve-bill-for-full-floor-vote
https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1920474969466601844
https://cointelegraph.com/news/arizona-governor-signs-bitcoin-reserve-keep-unclaimed-crypto
https://www.theblock.co/post/353344/superstate-unveils-opening-bell-to-bring-sec-registered-equities-onchain-starting-with-solana
https://cointelegraph.com/news/coinbase-acquire-deribit-2-9-billion
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Topics for today:
- OCC Says US Banks "Free to Crypto"
- Texas BTC Bill Passes House Committee
- Arizona Gov Signs a Nothing Burger Bill
- Stripe Payments Enters Stablecoin Frey
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Articles:
https://decrypt.co/318478/occ-says-banks-can-handle-crypto-for-customers-and-outsource-it-toohttps://cointelegraph.com/news/texas-house-committee-passes-bitcoin-reserve-bill-for-full-floor-vote
https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1920474969466601844
https://cointelegraph.com/news/arizona-governor-signs-bitcoin-reserve-keep-unclaimed-crypto
- https://www.cnbc.com/futures-and-commodities/
- https://dashboard.clarkmoody.com/
- https://mempool.space/
- https://www.bitcoinandshow.com/
- https://fountain.fm/show/eK5XaSb3UaLRavU3lYrI
https://www.theblock.co/post/353344/superstate-unveils-opening-bell-to-bring-sec-registered-equities-onchain-starting-with-solana
https://cointelegraph.com/news/coinbase-acquire-deribit-2-9-billion
Find the Bitcoin And Podcast on every podcast app here
https://episodes.fm/1438789088
Find the Bitcoin And Podcast on every podcast app here:
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[00:00:02]
David Bennett:
It is 09:09AM Pacific Daylight Time. It is the May 2025. This is episode ten ninety one of Bitcoin, and we're at a hundred thousand dollars again. We'll see how long we can hold it. Apparently, everybody's all jitty about Trump and China's trade deal, and we're not sure exactly what's gonna happen. But from what I understand, it's gonna be the best deal because, you know, we make the best deals. It's gonna be a great deal. It's gonna be an awesome deal. Let's just wait and see if it actually happens before we start, you know, jerking each other around, man, it's just the whole just be careful out there. Right?
What here's what in my experience, here's is what here is what has happened over the past few years. People get really depressed. And any amount of good news, and this is not just Bitcoin, this is legacy markets as well because shit is so off the hook that people across from retail all the way up into institutional will just grab for straws like a drowning man trying to stand on the shoulders of another drowning man even though all you're gonna do is you're still gonna die. And I'm not saying don't be happy. I'm just saying be cautious, man. Don't don't start doing things like, okay. This is when I when I max out my credit cards to go buy Bitcoin.
This is the day that I call the bank and and get that fourth mortgage on my four houses, you know, so I could buy Bitcoin. Please just lock it down, man. Lock your shit down. Be careful. Take a deep breath and realize you don't have to time tops and bottoms. Okay? Please, for the love of God, I've been here many times. I I see how things can turn very, very quickly. Do not let hubris, do not let excitement, do not let emotion dictate your actions in the next few days, specifically in the next few hours. Right? That's where people really make mistakes. They start picking up phones. They start making calls. They start doing things that they can't get out of instead of taking a deep breath, meditating a little bit.
I don't know. Go take a walk. Whatever. We've got news. The office of the comptroller of the currency, the OCC in The United States, they themselves have said that banks can handle cryptocurrency for customers and you can outsource it too. Vince D'Aquino from Decrypt kicks us off. The office of the Comptroller of the Currency has given a nod to national US banks that it oversees, allowing them to buy, sell, and manage crypto assets under their custody. National banks may do so at their customer's direction and are permitted to outsource crypto custody and execution services.
An interpretive letter issued Wednesday by acting comptroller of the currency Rodney Hood reads, the OCC's affirmation follows coordinated action across regulatory agencies signaling a broader recalibration of the Trump administration's approach to digital assets. Two weeks ago, the Federal Reserve, along with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, withdrew supervisory letters that had required banks to obtain prior consent before engaging with crypto effectively ending choke point practices that have hindered and barred the crypto industry's reputation.
With its new directive, the OCC builds on interpretive letter eleven seventy, which in July of twenty twenty initially established banks authority to provide crypto custody. Banks could offer and provide cryptocurrency custody services including holding the unique cryptographic keys associated with cryptocurrency, the OCC wrote at the time, characterizing such activities as a modern form of traditional banking. But that early openness was later tempered in 2021 and 2022 under a new administration. The OCC, alongside the Federal Reserve and FDIC, issued guidance requiring banks to obtain written supervisory non objection before engaging in crypto related activities effectively stalling institutional adoption, that policy has now effectively been reversed completely with the OCC's latest guidance.
It comes as some traditional banks seek crypto market entry without building infrastructure from scratch, even as critics like president Donald Trump's son, Eric, see some anti crypto banks as broken, slow, and expensive. The OCC's latest affirmation, meanwhile, follows interpretive letter eleven eighty three from earlier in March in which the office reaffirmed crypto asset custody, distributed ledger, and stablecoin activities as, quote, permissible. At the time, the OCC tagged those three sections as crypto asset activities and noted that banks could develop and engage with them as long as they are consistent with sound risk management practices.
Later that month, FDIC followed suit with acting chairman Travis Hill stating, the move shows it is turning the page on the flawed approach of the past three years. So what does it mean? Okay. The OCC was pretty much the last stop gap between the banks being able to embrace what's going on because be be before, there was a couple like, you know, the FDIC kinda, like, went hands off. The Trump administration went hands off. There were a couple of agencies that said that told banks directly, we're we're done with the prosecutorial phase of regulation.
You can go ahead and do the thing. And the banks did what? Not of not very many of them. Almost none of them actually took the bait. Well, I shouldn't call it bait. But they didn't do the thing. Right? They didn't start, you know, they didn't start cranking up services. They didn't, like, you know, go to the advertising agencies and say, hey. Make the commercial for Wells Fargo to be aired at the, you know, the latest basketball game or whatever it was. They didn't do any of that. They were still waiting. And all I believe that at this point, with the OCC now saying they are effectively hands off and, yes, you, Wells Fargo, you, Bank of America, you, Federal Credit Union, you can all handle cryptocurrency.
Now you're probably going to see more and more banks actually start ginning up commercials, start advertising cryptocurrency holding services, buying services, trading, whatever. Right? The OCC, I believe, was the last gatekeeper to say, we're done. You guys do what you wanna do. We'll have to see if the banks actually do it because it may not be in in it may not be in their modeling. It may not be part of their their revenue model. It may not be part of what they wanna get into, but some will. And those that prove themselves to be very effective at it and start making a boat, you know, a boatload of money at it if they do, then you're going to see the floodgates open. So here's what I'm saying. Don't expect this, Even though this is the last one of the last gatekeepers that there is, do not expect everybody to automatically start saying, hey. We're in. I mean, it could happen.
I'm just not expecting it. Meanwhile, down in Texas, where the Texas house committee has passed the Bitcoin reserve bill, and it's going to a full floor vote. Braden Lindria from Cointelegraph. A Texas house committee has passed a Republican backed bill to create a Bitcoin reserve, which now only needs a successful full floor vote before heading to the governor's desk. The Texas House Committee on Delivery and Government Efficiency passed senate bill 21 with no amendments on May in a nine to four vote along party lines. The bill is already passed the Texas senate in a 25 to five vote on March. SB 21 would establish the strategic Texas Bitcoin Reserve controlled by the state's comptroller, currently Glenn Hegar, who would be permitted to invest in digital assets that have obtained a market cap of at least $500,000,000,000 over the last twelve months, which would currently only include Bitcoin.
Republican senator Charles Schwartner initially introduced SB 21 back in January as a Bitcoin only bill. However, the bill was refiled to include the potential inclusion of shitcoins in February. Bitcoin Laws founder Julian Farrar said on Twitter that the fate of s b 21 should be determined before June when the Texas legislature adjourns. If the bill sees a successful full floor vote, it would head automatically to governor Greg Abbott's desk. Abbott expressed his desire to make Texas the crypto capital of The United States back in November and accepted Bitcoin donations as part of his campaign in 2020 or, I'm sorry, 2014.
Oh, wow. I did not know that. That's interesting. The Texas vote comes the same day as Arizona governor Katie Hobbs signed a bill into law that allowed the state to keep unclaimed crypto and establish a Bitcoin and digital asset reserve fund that won't use taxpayer or state funds. And that, in fact, is the very next thing that we have up in the news is the Arizona news. So Braden Lindria is also writing this, also for Cointelegraph, Arizona governor signs a law for the state to keep unclaimed crypto. Arizona governor Katie Hobbs has signed a law allowing the state to claim ownership of digital assets that have been abandoned for at least three years.
Before we get into the rest of this, I'm just gonna say that this is a nothing burger. This is this was Katie throwing some kind of bone. The the real the real meat and potatoes bill that she could have passed by signing it into law was the one that she vetoed. This one, this one is full of shit. That's what this is. Arizona governor Katie Hobbs has signed into bill or signed a bill into law allowing the state to keep unclaimed, unclaimed crypto and establish a Bitcoin reserve fund that won't use any taxpayer money. Hobbs signed house bill twenty seven forty nine into law on May, which now allows Arizona to claim ownership of abandoned digital assets if the owner fails to respond to communications within three years.
The state's custodians can stake the crypto to earn rewards or receive airdrops. Jesus. It's like they vetoed the 1 Bitcoin bill and then passed the shit coin bill. This is nothing. And people were really excited that, oh my god. Katie Hobbs finally came through after she vetoed the first bill. No. This is crap. I'm sorry, but it is. It's just garbage. This is a nothing bill. This was this is to get votes. It's going to do nothing. It's going to result in nothing. It's going to not make Arizona any any money whatsoever. It's not going to increase their wealth at all because it's just going to be a stagnant law on their books. Because, I mean, can you imagine receiving airdrops as a United States state?
It's embarrassing when shitcoiners do it, for god's sakes. But they're gonna be able to stake the crypto and earn rewards or receive airdrops, which can then be deposited into what Arizona has called a Bitcoin and digital asset reserve fund. Quote, this law ensures Arizona doesn't leave value sitting on the table and puts us in a position to lead the country in how we secure, manage, and ultimately benefit from abandoned digital currency, the bill sponsor, Jeff Weg Weininger said in a May 7 statement. Quote, we've built a structure that protects property rights, respects ownership, and gives the state tools to account for a new category of value in the economy, Wenninger said.
On May, Hobbs vetoed a similar Bitcoin reserve bill, senate bill ten twenty five, which would have allowed the state to invest seized funds into Bitcoin, citing concerns over using public funds for, quote, untested assets. Bitcoin laws founder Julian Farrar said on Twitter that Hobbs signing h b twenty seven forty nine offers more hope that she may also sign senate bill thirteen seventy three, which is currently on her desk. Now that bill, SB thirteen seventy three, would authorize Arizona's treasurer, currently Kimberly Yee, to allocate up to 10% of Arizona's budget stabilization fund into Bitcoin.
The bill's passage in Arizona follows New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayote on May 6 signing house bill three zero two into law, allowing New Hampshire's state treasury to use funds to invest in crypto currencies with a market capitalization of more than 500,000,000,000, and Bitcoin is currently the only cryptocurrency that meets that threshold. Okay. So first of all, unclaimed digital assets. What in the hell does that even mean? On the surface, you can say, well, it means unclaimed digital assets. How do you know it's unclaimed? Who's who's holding it that knows that I haven't claimed it?
What are you talking about? What do you exactly do you mean by unclaimed digital assets? So what I get a like, I mean, is is Arizona planning on cutting some kind of Bitcoin payment to some of its citizenry as, like, let's say, a tax refund? And if for whatever reason how how do you know that goes unclaimed? It's not a pull system. It's a push system. If if for whatever reason, like, for instance, if I've given the state of Arizona as a taxpayer a Bitcoin address and they say, hey. You've got a refund. Do you want it in Bitcoin? And I say, yes. And they push the Bitcoin to my wallet. I mean, I I can't stop that from happening. That's the way Bitcoin works. So now all of a sudden, Bitcoin ends up in my wallet.
What are they gonna do? Are they are they going to look at it, you know, day after day after day and then say, okay. Well, it's been ninety days. You haven't actually called us up and said that you've taken ownership of it. Even though it's clearly in your wallet, it's a push system and not a pull system. So you have it, so we're gonna take it back. Well, again, Bitcoin doesn't work that way. So somebody, please, tell me what the hell this chick is doing. What was this bill all about? Unclaimed digital assets? What the hell does that even mean? And second, Julian Farrar, the Bitcoin laws founder, saying that there this offers hope that she will sign a bill that will allocate up to 10% of Arizona's budget stabilization fund into Bitcoin. No. She already vetoed the bill that would have allowed even seized funds to be used to buy Bitcoin. She is probably not going to sign s b thirteen seventy three unless she gets so much pushback from the bill that she did veto that she feels that she might lose governor.
She might get what you know, she might get primaried. I don't even know if she's up to be like, if she's running for governor next for next term or what. I I honestly don't give a shit what happens in Arizona. Not I mean, the people are fine. I'm just saying that your governor is a complete fucking moron, and many governors are. You you you do not have the Arizonans do not have the only idiot governor that there is. In either event, I have very little hope that somebody who vetoed the bill that she vetoed, that she would then turn around and then pass s b thirteen seventy three because that's too that is that's actually even closer to the fire of using public funds for, quote, unquote, untested assets.
In her opinion, Bitcoin is an untested asset. She's not going to let Arizona's budget stabilization fund invest into Bitcoin at a rate of anywhere close to 10%, if at all, because I think she's gonna veto that one too. I mean, I'm just saying. But Missouri did a thing. The state of Missouri and The United States just did a thing. Their house has passed a bill to exempt Bitcoin from capital gains taxes. Right? So Missouri seems to be knowing what they're doing. But, again, that's gonna have to go to the governor. So the question to ask, is the Missouri governor a complete moron or is the Missouri governor above board?
I guess we'll find out. I don't even know if this bill has to go to the senate first. All of it see, this is what here's what I'm begging for people like Pete Rizzo, the Bitcoin historian, because he's the one that that put this tweet out on Twitter. Right? He says, Justin, Missouri house passes bill to exempt Bitcoin from capital gains taxes. This is the way. Could you do me a favor, Pete? And when you make statements like this, could you tell me, does it need to go to the senate? And how many committees does it have to go to in the senate before it goes to a senate for for a full floor vote? When that if it does go to a full floor vote, when do you think that might happen? Is there anything else in a way before it goes to the governor's desk for signing?
Nobody has been really clear on exactly what bills are in what state. And, yes, I could go to Bitcoin laws and all that, but when we're reading when we're reading these news stories, there's always something lacking. Like, I could have sworn to God that both of the Texas bills that represented Bitcoin strategic reserve bills had been passed by the house and the senate, and they were both on the way to the governor's desk. And now I find out that that's not exactly true. So, please, because our state legislature stuff is so freakingly freakishly convoluted, is there any way that we could have stories that basically say, okay.
X bill has passed this committee. Its next committee is this. And then after that, it will go here and here and here and here and here and here. And we're we're on this this step number three. We've got 19 steps and they're all laid out and we'll keep track of them for you. Please, for the love of God, do that. And meanwhile, I'll run the numbers for you. Futures and commodities, whoop dee doo, and we have a new pope. White smoke has spilled out of the chimney at the Vatican. Just now, it's breaking news. We still don't know who the new pope is going to be. I'm sure they will announce that later on in the day. But meanwhile, oil is also up in the green today because of the Trump China tariff trade talks. It's up $2.84.
West Texas Intermediate coming in at $59.73. Brenton North Sea is up 2 and a half to $62.68. Natural gas is down two points to 3 and a half bucks. Gasoline is up two and a half points to $2.08. Gold is down two and a third to $33.12, and 3 dimes. Silver is down a half. Platinum moving sideways. Copper is down two. Palladium, however, is up point 17%. Ag is pretty much fully mixed. The biggest winner today is sugar. Two points to the upside. Biggest loser, wheat, one and a half to the downside. I got live cattle up a half. Lean hogs down a fifth of a point, and feeder cattle are up almost a half.
All your legacy equity markets are raging bulls right now. Dow is up one and a third. S and P is up one and a third. Nasdaq is up one and two thirds, and the S and P Mini is up one and three quarter points. Bitcoin is also up. As I said, $100,800 is exactly a $2,000,000,000,000 market cap, and we can purchase 30.3 no. 30.4 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our one Bitcoin of which there are 19,861,794.61 up. And average fees per block are low, 0.04 BTC taking in fees on a per block basis. There are 10 blocks carrying 3,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 3 Satoshis per vbyte.
Low priority is gonna get you in also at 3 Satoshis per vbyte. We've got 925.3 exahashes per second as a hash rate, so there is no minor capitulation. In fact, hash rate is rising and looks to be a 6.87% increase in difficulty coming around April. Wow. We must be mining blocks fairly quickly. Average block times are nine point four minutes right now. And from Trump Hump Day, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin End, I got Axelrod, double aught, with 1,021 sats, says, thumbs up for the thumbs up news. It's a pleasure to listen to you read these poorly worded sentences littered throughout BTC Newscape like a slow moving grammatical train wreck.
Keep up the good work and disdain for bad grammar. Cheers. I hear you, brother. Turkey with 500 says nothing. T K C T V Eighty H P W with 500 says Psycock. Oh. Oh. Shots fired, brother. Chill now with 444 SAT says, yep. $10.90. Realigns moral coding. Miners unplugged wells. Give breadcrumb trails to agenda reveals. Surface dot logic semi sentient. Wallet app floats on borrowed ships of usury signal loop, infinite reflection strategy of debt pivots with in shitification of AI, neural dot fabric auto adaptive, all virtual dreams, creation of some tech scheme, reality, twisted and bent, status online, will to resist recalibrated, I need a new passive aggressive income end signal.
Yodle with 444 says, FYI, I believe the company loan min minimum is in fact lower at $10,000 having watched Jack's original video. What Yodel's talking about is the strike, limits on how much you can take your new strike loans against Bitcoin for. So Yodel is saying that having watched Jack Mallard's original video, company loans or business loans can go as low as 10,000. And the other, limit, lower limit was 75,000. So I guess it's you if you wanna take a personal loan on your Bitcoin, you have to do $75. But if you have a business and you wanna take a business loan, you can do 10,000. I still highly caution and recommend patience.
Patience. Do you really need the loan? If you do, can you really do the thing that's going to be able to make the payments to pay back the loan or at least service the loan so that you don't have your Bitcoin liquidated out from underneath you? And this is the again, these are about the strike loans. Jack Mallers company strikes. So just I'm just saying caution. I'm not saying we hate them. I'm not saying we should hate them. I I don't. I really like Jack. I'm just saying be cautious. When when collateral that is your Bitcoin is put up for fiat cash, you better have a good reason for doing that and not just because you can. Alright? So please just be careful. Perma nerd with two fifty six says thank you, sir. No thank you. And that's the weather report.
Welcome to part two of the news that you can use. First one out of the bag for this half of the show is Stripe unveiling payment products powered by Gale Force Tailwind Stablecoins. I don't think it's actually that's the brand name of the stablecoin. I think they're just saying stablecoins are a Gale Force Tailwind. And we'll find out more from Jamie Crowley, writing for CoinDesk. Stripe is ramping up its stablecoin capabilities, expanding the provision for businesses to receive and hold payments on cryptocurrency rails. Following on from Stripe's acquisition of stablecoin platform named Bridge, the San Francisco based payment giant has unveiled a new money management service powered by Stablecoin.
Which is the whole reason I'm reading you this is because Stablecoin. I keep telling you to watch out for this. Stablecoin financial accounts will enable businesses to hold a balance in Stablecoins and distribute them anywhere in the world according to Stripe as announced on Thursday. At its annual event, Sessions, CEO Patrick Collison described stablecoins along with artificial intelligence as not one but two gale force tailwinds well off the Beaufort scale, dramatically reshaping the economic landscape around us. Quote, we're building programmable financial services to make money as easy to manipulate and manage with code as data is, said Will Gabrick, Stripe's president and product of business.
Stripe recently said that it was preparing a new stablecoin payments pilot aimed at companies based outside of The United States, The United Kingdom, and the European Union. Free from the volatility that remains inherent to cryptocurrencies like BTC, stablecoins have been flagged as, quote, a potential breakout use case for blockchain technology. It's not a blockchain, guys. Most stablecoins are not actual blockchains. They're just ledgers. Whatever. Citi predicted that the sector could grow to a 3,700,000,000,000, that's trillion with a t, market cap by 2030, which would constitute a 15 fold growth from its current market cap of around a mere $242,000,000,000.
So what does this mean? Stripe is getting into the stablecoin game as well. And here's what I predict. They will actually spin up their own stablecoin just like everybody's going to spin up their own stablecoin. You know? And this actually reminds me of what happened, after, you know, like like, right around the there was a couple of times during The United States' early history. After the revolutionary war, a lot of the states had their own like, a lot of the states and then banks inside the states have their own currency. There was not a federal United States dollar, not not at that time. And then around civil war times, we had a similar issue where there were several different kinds of, for lack of a better term, private, non state issued or state issued, but certainly not federally issued, at least in the Southern states during the civil war times, currencies.
So is is it the fact that several different private types of currencies automatically spin up around the human condition when things in the market are just incredibly confusing. I mean, because this seems this seems very, very similar to right after the Americans, American Revolution and the American Civil War. And it's I know it's happened in in in the rest of the world as well at various times, but these are the two things that that I know about the most. So it just seems that this is sort of a theme that when markets get weird or or things around you get so unpredictable that you just say, fuck it. Let's have our own money. Be very, very careful about this stablecoin thing. And I I I know I harp on it all the time, and I'm going to beat that dead horse with as big of a stick as I can to make sure that anybody who's new to this show understands, be careful about stablecoins.
Do not engage in ICO chicanery or altcoin chicanery or shitcoin chicanery. It's that kind of mental thinking that is going to start the spinning up of hundreds, if not thousands, if not 10,000 of that tens of thousands of stablecoins. It's gonna be that same bullshit. It makes me feel dirty, and I need to get clean. And I'm gonna do it with SoapMiner handmade tallow soaps. Circle p is open for business. The Circle p is where I bring plebs with goods and services just like you to plebs just like you who want to buy goods and services. And in this case, it's it's handmade 100% beef tallow soap.
In most of these, there is maybe four or five ingredients. There's cedarwood. There's peppermint tallow soap. There's lavender tallow soap. There's pine tar tallow soap. And then my favorite is just rough cut tallow. It's got three ingredients, a % beef tallow, lye, and distilled water. That's it. It's one of the best soaps I've ever used. My children like it. My wife likes it. And guys, any of you guys out there who are married, when your wife likes a soap, yeah, that's probably a that's probably a soap that's worthwhile. Okay? I'm just I'm just saying. Whenever I use this soap, I mean, the skin is squeaky clean, and it doesn't take long to do either. It's like bam bam bam, what you know, rub your hands together a few times, you know, rinse it off, and all of a sudden, all the dirt is gone. So if you feel grubby having to listen to me talk about stablecoins, then you need to get Soap Miner soaps. You go to soapminer.com.
That's soapminer.com. Use Bitcoin and for a 10% off of your entire cart, and you put that coupon code into the coupon code box when you go to your cart at soapminer.com. Get all of his soaps. He's got, like, seven complete or seven or eight completely different flavors of soap. All of them are worth your money and worth your time. Again, soapminer.com use Bitcoin and for 10% off. Now, the super state or rather super state unveils opening bell to bring SEC registered equities on chain starting with Solana. I'm not touting Solana. I'm I'm trying to, like, read you stories of where I think things are going, whether they're good or bad.
This is probably not great, but Jason Shubnell will pretty much line us out here from the block. Super State, known for its suite of tokenized private funds including USTB and USCC, is now extending its infrastructure to public equities, like stocks. Right? That's what they're talking about. The fintech firm on Wednesday announced the launch of, quote, opening bell, a platform that enables SEC registered public equities to be issued and traded directly on blockchain networks, and they're starting with Solana. Opening Bell supports natively issued regulatory compliant shares that interact directly with crypto wallets, DeFi protocols, and on chain marketplaces.
What could possibly freaking go wrong according to a release shared with the block? The platform eliminates reliance on centralized exchanges and legacy listing mechanisms offering continuous trading and real time settlement via blockchain native infrastructures. Quote, through opening bell, stock will become fully transferable, programmable, and integrated into DeFi, Super State CEO Robert Leshner said in the release, quote, this is about reengineering public markets for the modern financial stack, end quote. Oh, boy.
While several companies and projects are working on bridging public equities with blockchain infrastructures, Opening Bell appears to be the first to offer direct issuance and trading of SEC registered public shares on chain rather than synthetic or wrapped versions. In a letter last month to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission's crypto task force, Superstate was among several firms to propose an SCC backed framework to bring Wall Street stocks to the blockchain. Yay. We're going to the blockchain. SOL strategies. A Canadian public company focused on investing and building infrastructure for the Solana ecosystem, will be the first to list its common shares on Solana via opening bell.
The firm had previously initiated a process to uplist to Nasdaq and now aims to establish a dual market presence. Soul Strategies rebranded rebranded last year from Cypherpunk Holdings. As of March 31, Soul Strategies held, I don't know, some amount of their shit coin, whatever it was. Quote, listing Sol Strategies shares on opening bell reflects our conviction that the future of capital formation lies in programmable, open infrastructure powered by shitcoin number three, Leah Wald, CEO of Sol Strategies, said in the release.
Quote, this approach enables twenty four seven trading, instant settlement, and global access with deep liquidity, exactly what today's modern investors expect. Put a tie on that suit speak lady. Opening Bell is now onboarding both existing public companies and late stage private firms, particularly those from crypto native, venture backed, and traditional sectors. So there you go. Equities on the blockchain. Thankfully, they're gonna start with shitcoin equity shitcoin company equities, like this Sol Technologies or whatever the hell it was. So you'll have to wait for Chevron to get on the blockchain, but it's gonna happen, and that's gonna end up being quite a problem for New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, S and P five hundred. Well, not S and P, but, I mean, the Nasdaq Exchange, the, and the, New York Stock Exchange and Chicago.
I mean, that like, an I I think that even Texas is getting their own their own kind of stock exchange. All of these things are in danger because of this. It doesn't mean that it's good. I'm I'm actually not advocating for this. A twenty four seven market of everything may be may be a bad idea. I don't know. And then we've got we've got to start talking about circuit breakers. If this is really gonna be decentralized finance, who's are there gonna be circuit breakers? And if they are, how are they designed? Who designs them? And who can throw the circuit breaker? That's just one issue here.
In twenty four seven trading, especially for people that actually trade for a living, what's that going to do to their sleep? Could you imagine having to go to sleep when you know shit's trading twenty four seven? Yeah. In a very real way, that's already done. But at least they have the weekend to catch up on sleep. Not anymore. No. No. No. Hell no. We're going full bore, ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna be trading every second of every minute of every hour of every day on weekends, on holidays. Well, I mean, leap years.
They'll be we'll be trading in days that even don't freaking exist. I'm not sure that this is the best idea, but it is coming. So just be prepared. Finally, for today, I realize this is a short show, but honestly, after a hundred thousand dollar Bitcoin, there really wasn't much more that people were talking about, and I just didn't wanna harp on it because it is what it is. Cointelegraph, Helen Parks, Coinbase is going to acquire options trading platform, Derabit, for almost $3,000,000,000. Derabit's been around for a while, and now they're getting bought, dude. Coinbase, largest cryptocurrency exchange in US by trading volume, has agreed to acquire Derabit, one of the world's biggest crypto derivatives trading platforms.
What could possibly go wrong? Coinbase Global will will acquire them for about $3,000,000,000. The acquisition will allow Coinbase to expand into the profitable crypto derivatives market, oh, yay, and continue scaling the platform's global growth. Greg Tussar, Coinbase's vice president of institutional product, said in an announcement, quote, with Derabit's strong presence in professional client base, Coinbase is making its most substantial move yet to accelerate our international growth strategies, Ed. Following the deal success expected later in 2025, Darabit founders John and Marius Jensen will step away from the firm because they have taken all their money.
Their exit would mark the end of the joint venture that began in 2014, Darabit said in a statement. Until the deal is closed later this year pending regulatory approvals, Darabit will continue as with business as usual, quote, same platform, same team, same commitment to excellence in derivatives, the announcement noted. Oh god. We're excited to join forces with Coinbase to power a new era in global crypto derivatives, Darebit CEO Luc Strygers said adding, quote, as the leading crypto options platform, we've built a strong profitable business, and this acquisition will accelerate the foundation we laid while providing traders with even more opportunities across spot, futures, perpetuals, and options, all under one trusted brand, end quote.
God, the suit speak. It's all over the place. The announcement also mentioned that integrating Derabits technology with Coinbase's products will enable more efficient onboarding, enhanced fiat rails, and capital efficiency across the entire trading life cycle. You mean you can steal from people twenty four seven because they're fucking ignorant, and you're preying on that like the vultures that you are. But continuing, the $2,900,000,000 deal includes 700,000,000 in cash and 11,000,000 shares of Coinbase class a common stock. Quote, this transaction is subject to regulatory approvals, the announcement said.
Previous reports in March suggested that Coinbase and Derabit had alerted regulators in Dubai about the potential deal as do excuse me, as Derabit holds a license there, which would need to be transferred to Coinbase if the deal is successful. The report also previously suggested that a deal with Coinbase could value Deribit at between 4,000,000,000 and $5,000,000,000. Coinbase's Deribit acquisition marks a growing trend of large acquisitions in the cryptocurrency market. On May, rival exchange, Kraken, officially announced it was finalizing the acquisition of another derivatives trading platform called NinjaTrader so that they can offer futures trading.
Kraken previously said it entered into an agreement to acquire NinjaTrader for $1,500,000,000 subject to certain price adjustments. So consolidation in the suit world when it comes to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is occurring. It will not stop. It's going to get ugly. It's not a good situation. Stay away from all of these companies. Coinbase has never been on Bitcoin's side. Kraken, there used to be a time when Jesse Powell, the guy that started that, was a solid Bitcoiner, but he stepped away from the company and now Kraken is just a is just a pure straight up shitcoin exchange just like Coinbase is.
None of these companies are worth your salt. If you have any Bitcoin on either one of these things, please, for the love of God, get them off. Alright. So that's it for the day. Episode ten ninety one is in the bag. What are we looking at? We're looking at $101,375 on a bitcoin. Not much else to say. We'll we'll see what Trump does. We'll see what this announcement is. Who knows? Maybe it'll be good. I don't know. I I I just don't. I I hope it is. I mean, I I hope we can get back to doing what we what we've been doing, but there's a problem with that.
We all know that the system is broke. That's not a lie. You know it as much as I do. And here was the deal is that everybody you know, we we we got orange man in. And but even those people, I saw them. I saw what happened. Even the people that were, like, the bit some of the biggest cheerleaders for Orange Man getting into office, they a hundred days of looking at their port well, maybe not a hundred days. We'll say thirty five. We'll say a month. And, sure, that is way short term. But they're looking at the portfolios, and it was at one point or another, a lot of people were down by 20% in their retirement accounts, their investment accounts, every across the board, 20% down. And it just stays there.
It doesn't move. All the energy companies are just basically getting beat beat up around the head head and shoulders with low energy prices. Right? It's like a lot of people are hurting in a lot of different ways. Alright? Everybody everybody was is basically getting beat up financially. It doesn't take long for the cheerleaders of Orange Man to start turning tail and going, wait a minute. Wait. I didn't expect it to be this bad for this long even though it's only a month. Right? Now now the smart money is on waiting it out. That that's always the case no matter who the hell does what, where. You just be patient.
But it's hard to do that when you see that you're 20% down and you're close to retirement age or something like that. So you're gonna start turn you're gonna start doing the whole turncoat thing. We have to see what the hell orange man and g come up with. We have to see if there's any other deals on the table from all these other countries. We have to see what the announcement is actually going to be. So until we get a firm feel of what the hell's gonna happen, please understand that just because they put a Band Aid over this thing and the portfolios go back up to where they were and people breathe a sigh of relief does not mean that the underlying problem that's fucking up the financial markets and has been since 1971 isn't still present. It is.
We're printing money like it's going out of style, and it ain't just The US. You got derivatives of derivatives of derivatives that basically somehow or another affect the the bet on the bet on the bet on the bet is now somehow so powerful that it affects the roll of the fucking dice. Right? And that's in meat markets, that's in any commodity markets, that's in equity markets, that's in money markets, that's in interest markets, you name it. These this is a huge casino. And just because we possibly might get a deal with China does not mean that the fundamental aspects of what's broke is automatically fixed. It ain't.
It won't be. Only Bitcoin is the way. Bitcoin is the only way out. 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 09:09AM Pacific Daylight Time. It is the May 2025. This is episode ten ninety one of Bitcoin, and we're at a hundred thousand dollars again. We'll see how long we can hold it. Apparently, everybody's all jitty about Trump and China's trade deal, and we're not sure exactly what's gonna happen. But from what I understand, it's gonna be the best deal because, you know, we make the best deals. It's gonna be a great deal. It's gonna be an awesome deal. Let's just wait and see if it actually happens before we start, you know, jerking each other around, man, it's just the whole just be careful out there. Right?
What here's what in my experience, here's is what here is what has happened over the past few years. People get really depressed. And any amount of good news, and this is not just Bitcoin, this is legacy markets as well because shit is so off the hook that people across from retail all the way up into institutional will just grab for straws like a drowning man trying to stand on the shoulders of another drowning man even though all you're gonna do is you're still gonna die. And I'm not saying don't be happy. I'm just saying be cautious, man. Don't don't start doing things like, okay. This is when I when I max out my credit cards to go buy Bitcoin.
This is the day that I call the bank and and get that fourth mortgage on my four houses, you know, so I could buy Bitcoin. Please just lock it down, man. Lock your shit down. Be careful. Take a deep breath and realize you don't have to time tops and bottoms. Okay? Please, for the love of God, I've been here many times. I I see how things can turn very, very quickly. Do not let hubris, do not let excitement, do not let emotion dictate your actions in the next few days, specifically in the next few hours. Right? That's where people really make mistakes. They start picking up phones. They start making calls. They start doing things that they can't get out of instead of taking a deep breath, meditating a little bit.
I don't know. Go take a walk. Whatever. We've got news. The office of the comptroller of the currency, the OCC in The United States, they themselves have said that banks can handle cryptocurrency for customers and you can outsource it too. Vince D'Aquino from Decrypt kicks us off. The office of the Comptroller of the Currency has given a nod to national US banks that it oversees, allowing them to buy, sell, and manage crypto assets under their custody. National banks may do so at their customer's direction and are permitted to outsource crypto custody and execution services.
An interpretive letter issued Wednesday by acting comptroller of the currency Rodney Hood reads, the OCC's affirmation follows coordinated action across regulatory agencies signaling a broader recalibration of the Trump administration's approach to digital assets. Two weeks ago, the Federal Reserve, along with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, withdrew supervisory letters that had required banks to obtain prior consent before engaging with crypto effectively ending choke point practices that have hindered and barred the crypto industry's reputation.
With its new directive, the OCC builds on interpretive letter eleven seventy, which in July of twenty twenty initially established banks authority to provide crypto custody. Banks could offer and provide cryptocurrency custody services including holding the unique cryptographic keys associated with cryptocurrency, the OCC wrote at the time, characterizing such activities as a modern form of traditional banking. But that early openness was later tempered in 2021 and 2022 under a new administration. The OCC, alongside the Federal Reserve and FDIC, issued guidance requiring banks to obtain written supervisory non objection before engaging in crypto related activities effectively stalling institutional adoption, that policy has now effectively been reversed completely with the OCC's latest guidance.
It comes as some traditional banks seek crypto market entry without building infrastructure from scratch, even as critics like president Donald Trump's son, Eric, see some anti crypto banks as broken, slow, and expensive. The OCC's latest affirmation, meanwhile, follows interpretive letter eleven eighty three from earlier in March in which the office reaffirmed crypto asset custody, distributed ledger, and stablecoin activities as, quote, permissible. At the time, the OCC tagged those three sections as crypto asset activities and noted that banks could develop and engage with them as long as they are consistent with sound risk management practices.
Later that month, FDIC followed suit with acting chairman Travis Hill stating, the move shows it is turning the page on the flawed approach of the past three years. So what does it mean? Okay. The OCC was pretty much the last stop gap between the banks being able to embrace what's going on because be be before, there was a couple like, you know, the FDIC kinda, like, went hands off. The Trump administration went hands off. There were a couple of agencies that said that told banks directly, we're we're done with the prosecutorial phase of regulation.
You can go ahead and do the thing. And the banks did what? Not of not very many of them. Almost none of them actually took the bait. Well, I shouldn't call it bait. But they didn't do the thing. Right? They didn't start, you know, they didn't start cranking up services. They didn't, like, you know, go to the advertising agencies and say, hey. Make the commercial for Wells Fargo to be aired at the, you know, the latest basketball game or whatever it was. They didn't do any of that. They were still waiting. And all I believe that at this point, with the OCC now saying they are effectively hands off and, yes, you, Wells Fargo, you, Bank of America, you, Federal Credit Union, you can all handle cryptocurrency.
Now you're probably going to see more and more banks actually start ginning up commercials, start advertising cryptocurrency holding services, buying services, trading, whatever. Right? The OCC, I believe, was the last gatekeeper to say, we're done. You guys do what you wanna do. We'll have to see if the banks actually do it because it may not be in in it may not be in their modeling. It may not be part of their their revenue model. It may not be part of what they wanna get into, but some will. And those that prove themselves to be very effective at it and start making a boat, you know, a boatload of money at it if they do, then you're going to see the floodgates open. So here's what I'm saying. Don't expect this, Even though this is the last one of the last gatekeepers that there is, do not expect everybody to automatically start saying, hey. We're in. I mean, it could happen.
I'm just not expecting it. Meanwhile, down in Texas, where the Texas house committee has passed the Bitcoin reserve bill, and it's going to a full floor vote. Braden Lindria from Cointelegraph. A Texas house committee has passed a Republican backed bill to create a Bitcoin reserve, which now only needs a successful full floor vote before heading to the governor's desk. The Texas House Committee on Delivery and Government Efficiency passed senate bill 21 with no amendments on May in a nine to four vote along party lines. The bill is already passed the Texas senate in a 25 to five vote on March. SB 21 would establish the strategic Texas Bitcoin Reserve controlled by the state's comptroller, currently Glenn Hegar, who would be permitted to invest in digital assets that have obtained a market cap of at least $500,000,000,000 over the last twelve months, which would currently only include Bitcoin.
Republican senator Charles Schwartner initially introduced SB 21 back in January as a Bitcoin only bill. However, the bill was refiled to include the potential inclusion of shitcoins in February. Bitcoin Laws founder Julian Farrar said on Twitter that the fate of s b 21 should be determined before June when the Texas legislature adjourns. If the bill sees a successful full floor vote, it would head automatically to governor Greg Abbott's desk. Abbott expressed his desire to make Texas the crypto capital of The United States back in November and accepted Bitcoin donations as part of his campaign in 2020 or, I'm sorry, 2014.
Oh, wow. I did not know that. That's interesting. The Texas vote comes the same day as Arizona governor Katie Hobbs signed a bill into law that allowed the state to keep unclaimed crypto and establish a Bitcoin and digital asset reserve fund that won't use taxpayer or state funds. And that, in fact, is the very next thing that we have up in the news is the Arizona news. So Braden Lindria is also writing this, also for Cointelegraph, Arizona governor signs a law for the state to keep unclaimed crypto. Arizona governor Katie Hobbs has signed a law allowing the state to claim ownership of digital assets that have been abandoned for at least three years.
Before we get into the rest of this, I'm just gonna say that this is a nothing burger. This is this was Katie throwing some kind of bone. The the real the real meat and potatoes bill that she could have passed by signing it into law was the one that she vetoed. This one, this one is full of shit. That's what this is. Arizona governor Katie Hobbs has signed into bill or signed a bill into law allowing the state to keep unclaimed, unclaimed crypto and establish a Bitcoin reserve fund that won't use any taxpayer money. Hobbs signed house bill twenty seven forty nine into law on May, which now allows Arizona to claim ownership of abandoned digital assets if the owner fails to respond to communications within three years.
The state's custodians can stake the crypto to earn rewards or receive airdrops. Jesus. It's like they vetoed the 1 Bitcoin bill and then passed the shit coin bill. This is nothing. And people were really excited that, oh my god. Katie Hobbs finally came through after she vetoed the first bill. No. This is crap. I'm sorry, but it is. It's just garbage. This is a nothing bill. This was this is to get votes. It's going to do nothing. It's going to result in nothing. It's going to not make Arizona any any money whatsoever. It's not going to increase their wealth at all because it's just going to be a stagnant law on their books. Because, I mean, can you imagine receiving airdrops as a United States state?
It's embarrassing when shitcoiners do it, for god's sakes. But they're gonna be able to stake the crypto and earn rewards or receive airdrops, which can then be deposited into what Arizona has called a Bitcoin and digital asset reserve fund. Quote, this law ensures Arizona doesn't leave value sitting on the table and puts us in a position to lead the country in how we secure, manage, and ultimately benefit from abandoned digital currency, the bill sponsor, Jeff Weg Weininger said in a May 7 statement. Quote, we've built a structure that protects property rights, respects ownership, and gives the state tools to account for a new category of value in the economy, Wenninger said.
On May, Hobbs vetoed a similar Bitcoin reserve bill, senate bill ten twenty five, which would have allowed the state to invest seized funds into Bitcoin, citing concerns over using public funds for, quote, untested assets. Bitcoin laws founder Julian Farrar said on Twitter that Hobbs signing h b twenty seven forty nine offers more hope that she may also sign senate bill thirteen seventy three, which is currently on her desk. Now that bill, SB thirteen seventy three, would authorize Arizona's treasurer, currently Kimberly Yee, to allocate up to 10% of Arizona's budget stabilization fund into Bitcoin.
The bill's passage in Arizona follows New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayote on May 6 signing house bill three zero two into law, allowing New Hampshire's state treasury to use funds to invest in crypto currencies with a market capitalization of more than 500,000,000,000, and Bitcoin is currently the only cryptocurrency that meets that threshold. Okay. So first of all, unclaimed digital assets. What in the hell does that even mean? On the surface, you can say, well, it means unclaimed digital assets. How do you know it's unclaimed? Who's who's holding it that knows that I haven't claimed it?
What are you talking about? What do you exactly do you mean by unclaimed digital assets? So what I get a like, I mean, is is Arizona planning on cutting some kind of Bitcoin payment to some of its citizenry as, like, let's say, a tax refund? And if for whatever reason how how do you know that goes unclaimed? It's not a pull system. It's a push system. If if for whatever reason, like, for instance, if I've given the state of Arizona as a taxpayer a Bitcoin address and they say, hey. You've got a refund. Do you want it in Bitcoin? And I say, yes. And they push the Bitcoin to my wallet. I mean, I I can't stop that from happening. That's the way Bitcoin works. So now all of a sudden, Bitcoin ends up in my wallet.
What are they gonna do? Are they are they going to look at it, you know, day after day after day and then say, okay. Well, it's been ninety days. You haven't actually called us up and said that you've taken ownership of it. Even though it's clearly in your wallet, it's a push system and not a pull system. So you have it, so we're gonna take it back. Well, again, Bitcoin doesn't work that way. So somebody, please, tell me what the hell this chick is doing. What was this bill all about? Unclaimed digital assets? What the hell does that even mean? And second, Julian Farrar, the Bitcoin laws founder, saying that there this offers hope that she will sign a bill that will allocate up to 10% of Arizona's budget stabilization fund into Bitcoin. No. She already vetoed the bill that would have allowed even seized funds to be used to buy Bitcoin. She is probably not going to sign s b thirteen seventy three unless she gets so much pushback from the bill that she did veto that she feels that she might lose governor.
She might get what you know, she might get primaried. I don't even know if she's up to be like, if she's running for governor next for next term or what. I I honestly don't give a shit what happens in Arizona. Not I mean, the people are fine. I'm just saying that your governor is a complete fucking moron, and many governors are. You you you do not have the Arizonans do not have the only idiot governor that there is. In either event, I have very little hope that somebody who vetoed the bill that she vetoed, that she would then turn around and then pass s b thirteen seventy three because that's too that is that's actually even closer to the fire of using public funds for, quote, unquote, untested assets.
In her opinion, Bitcoin is an untested asset. She's not going to let Arizona's budget stabilization fund invest into Bitcoin at a rate of anywhere close to 10%, if at all, because I think she's gonna veto that one too. I mean, I'm just saying. But Missouri did a thing. The state of Missouri and The United States just did a thing. Their house has passed a bill to exempt Bitcoin from capital gains taxes. Right? So Missouri seems to be knowing what they're doing. But, again, that's gonna have to go to the governor. So the question to ask, is the Missouri governor a complete moron or is the Missouri governor above board?
I guess we'll find out. I don't even know if this bill has to go to the senate first. All of it see, this is what here's what I'm begging for people like Pete Rizzo, the Bitcoin historian, because he's the one that that put this tweet out on Twitter. Right? He says, Justin, Missouri house passes bill to exempt Bitcoin from capital gains taxes. This is the way. Could you do me a favor, Pete? And when you make statements like this, could you tell me, does it need to go to the senate? And how many committees does it have to go to in the senate before it goes to a senate for for a full floor vote? When that if it does go to a full floor vote, when do you think that might happen? Is there anything else in a way before it goes to the governor's desk for signing?
Nobody has been really clear on exactly what bills are in what state. And, yes, I could go to Bitcoin laws and all that, but when we're reading when we're reading these news stories, there's always something lacking. Like, I could have sworn to God that both of the Texas bills that represented Bitcoin strategic reserve bills had been passed by the house and the senate, and they were both on the way to the governor's desk. And now I find out that that's not exactly true. So, please, because our state legislature stuff is so freakingly freakishly convoluted, is there any way that we could have stories that basically say, okay.
X bill has passed this committee. Its next committee is this. And then after that, it will go here and here and here and here and here and here. And we're we're on this this step number three. We've got 19 steps and they're all laid out and we'll keep track of them for you. Please, for the love of God, do that. And meanwhile, I'll run the numbers for you. Futures and commodities, whoop dee doo, and we have a new pope. White smoke has spilled out of the chimney at the Vatican. Just now, it's breaking news. We still don't know who the new pope is going to be. I'm sure they will announce that later on in the day. But meanwhile, oil is also up in the green today because of the Trump China tariff trade talks. It's up $2.84.
West Texas Intermediate coming in at $59.73. Brenton North Sea is up 2 and a half to $62.68. Natural gas is down two points to 3 and a half bucks. Gasoline is up two and a half points to $2.08. Gold is down two and a third to $33.12, and 3 dimes. Silver is down a half. Platinum moving sideways. Copper is down two. Palladium, however, is up point 17%. Ag is pretty much fully mixed. The biggest winner today is sugar. Two points to the upside. Biggest loser, wheat, one and a half to the downside. I got live cattle up a half. Lean hogs down a fifth of a point, and feeder cattle are up almost a half.
All your legacy equity markets are raging bulls right now. Dow is up one and a third. S and P is up one and a third. Nasdaq is up one and two thirds, and the S and P Mini is up one and three quarter points. Bitcoin is also up. As I said, $100,800 is exactly a $2,000,000,000,000 market cap, and we can purchase 30.3 no. 30.4 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our one Bitcoin of which there are 19,861,794.61 up. And average fees per block are low, 0.04 BTC taking in fees on a per block basis. There are 10 blocks carrying 3,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 3 Satoshis per vbyte.
Low priority is gonna get you in also at 3 Satoshis per vbyte. We've got 925.3 exahashes per second as a hash rate, so there is no minor capitulation. In fact, hash rate is rising and looks to be a 6.87% increase in difficulty coming around April. Wow. We must be mining blocks fairly quickly. Average block times are nine point four minutes right now. And from Trump Hump Day, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin End, I got Axelrod, double aught, with 1,021 sats, says, thumbs up for the thumbs up news. It's a pleasure to listen to you read these poorly worded sentences littered throughout BTC Newscape like a slow moving grammatical train wreck.
Keep up the good work and disdain for bad grammar. Cheers. I hear you, brother. Turkey with 500 says nothing. T K C T V Eighty H P W with 500 says Psycock. Oh. Oh. Shots fired, brother. Chill now with 444 SAT says, yep. $10.90. Realigns moral coding. Miners unplugged wells. Give breadcrumb trails to agenda reveals. Surface dot logic semi sentient. Wallet app floats on borrowed ships of usury signal loop, infinite reflection strategy of debt pivots with in shitification of AI, neural dot fabric auto adaptive, all virtual dreams, creation of some tech scheme, reality, twisted and bent, status online, will to resist recalibrated, I need a new passive aggressive income end signal.
Yodle with 444 says, FYI, I believe the company loan min minimum is in fact lower at $10,000 having watched Jack's original video. What Yodel's talking about is the strike, limits on how much you can take your new strike loans against Bitcoin for. So Yodel is saying that having watched Jack Mallard's original video, company loans or business loans can go as low as 10,000. And the other, limit, lower limit was 75,000. So I guess it's you if you wanna take a personal loan on your Bitcoin, you have to do $75. But if you have a business and you wanna take a business loan, you can do 10,000. I still highly caution and recommend patience.
Patience. Do you really need the loan? If you do, can you really do the thing that's going to be able to make the payments to pay back the loan or at least service the loan so that you don't have your Bitcoin liquidated out from underneath you? And this is the again, these are about the strike loans. Jack Mallers company strikes. So just I'm just saying caution. I'm not saying we hate them. I'm not saying we should hate them. I I don't. I really like Jack. I'm just saying be cautious. When when collateral that is your Bitcoin is put up for fiat cash, you better have a good reason for doing that and not just because you can. Alright? So please just be careful. Perma nerd with two fifty six says thank you, sir. No thank you. And that's the weather report.
Welcome to part two of the news that you can use. First one out of the bag for this half of the show is Stripe unveiling payment products powered by Gale Force Tailwind Stablecoins. I don't think it's actually that's the brand name of the stablecoin. I think they're just saying stablecoins are a Gale Force Tailwind. And we'll find out more from Jamie Crowley, writing for CoinDesk. Stripe is ramping up its stablecoin capabilities, expanding the provision for businesses to receive and hold payments on cryptocurrency rails. Following on from Stripe's acquisition of stablecoin platform named Bridge, the San Francisco based payment giant has unveiled a new money management service powered by Stablecoin.
Which is the whole reason I'm reading you this is because Stablecoin. I keep telling you to watch out for this. Stablecoin financial accounts will enable businesses to hold a balance in Stablecoins and distribute them anywhere in the world according to Stripe as announced on Thursday. At its annual event, Sessions, CEO Patrick Collison described stablecoins along with artificial intelligence as not one but two gale force tailwinds well off the Beaufort scale, dramatically reshaping the economic landscape around us. Quote, we're building programmable financial services to make money as easy to manipulate and manage with code as data is, said Will Gabrick, Stripe's president and product of business.
Stripe recently said that it was preparing a new stablecoin payments pilot aimed at companies based outside of The United States, The United Kingdom, and the European Union. Free from the volatility that remains inherent to cryptocurrencies like BTC, stablecoins have been flagged as, quote, a potential breakout use case for blockchain technology. It's not a blockchain, guys. Most stablecoins are not actual blockchains. They're just ledgers. Whatever. Citi predicted that the sector could grow to a 3,700,000,000,000, that's trillion with a t, market cap by 2030, which would constitute a 15 fold growth from its current market cap of around a mere $242,000,000,000.
So what does this mean? Stripe is getting into the stablecoin game as well. And here's what I predict. They will actually spin up their own stablecoin just like everybody's going to spin up their own stablecoin. You know? And this actually reminds me of what happened, after, you know, like like, right around the there was a couple of times during The United States' early history. After the revolutionary war, a lot of the states had their own like, a lot of the states and then banks inside the states have their own currency. There was not a federal United States dollar, not not at that time. And then around civil war times, we had a similar issue where there were several different kinds of, for lack of a better term, private, non state issued or state issued, but certainly not federally issued, at least in the Southern states during the civil war times, currencies.
So is is it the fact that several different private types of currencies automatically spin up around the human condition when things in the market are just incredibly confusing. I mean, because this seems this seems very, very similar to right after the Americans, American Revolution and the American Civil War. And it's I know it's happened in in in the rest of the world as well at various times, but these are the two things that that I know about the most. So it just seems that this is sort of a theme that when markets get weird or or things around you get so unpredictable that you just say, fuck it. Let's have our own money. Be very, very careful about this stablecoin thing. And I I I know I harp on it all the time, and I'm going to beat that dead horse with as big of a stick as I can to make sure that anybody who's new to this show understands, be careful about stablecoins.
Do not engage in ICO chicanery or altcoin chicanery or shitcoin chicanery. It's that kind of mental thinking that is going to start the spinning up of hundreds, if not thousands, if not 10,000 of that tens of thousands of stablecoins. It's gonna be that same bullshit. It makes me feel dirty, and I need to get clean. And I'm gonna do it with SoapMiner handmade tallow soaps. Circle p is open for business. The Circle p is where I bring plebs with goods and services just like you to plebs just like you who want to buy goods and services. And in this case, it's it's handmade 100% beef tallow soap.
In most of these, there is maybe four or five ingredients. There's cedarwood. There's peppermint tallow soap. There's lavender tallow soap. There's pine tar tallow soap. And then my favorite is just rough cut tallow. It's got three ingredients, a % beef tallow, lye, and distilled water. That's it. It's one of the best soaps I've ever used. My children like it. My wife likes it. And guys, any of you guys out there who are married, when your wife likes a soap, yeah, that's probably a that's probably a soap that's worthwhile. Okay? I'm just I'm just saying. Whenever I use this soap, I mean, the skin is squeaky clean, and it doesn't take long to do either. It's like bam bam bam, what you know, rub your hands together a few times, you know, rinse it off, and all of a sudden, all the dirt is gone. So if you feel grubby having to listen to me talk about stablecoins, then you need to get Soap Miner soaps. You go to soapminer.com.
That's soapminer.com. Use Bitcoin and for a 10% off of your entire cart, and you put that coupon code into the coupon code box when you go to your cart at soapminer.com. Get all of his soaps. He's got, like, seven complete or seven or eight completely different flavors of soap. All of them are worth your money and worth your time. Again, soapminer.com use Bitcoin and for 10% off. Now, the super state or rather super state unveils opening bell to bring SEC registered equities on chain starting with Solana. I'm not touting Solana. I'm I'm trying to, like, read you stories of where I think things are going, whether they're good or bad.
This is probably not great, but Jason Shubnell will pretty much line us out here from the block. Super State, known for its suite of tokenized private funds including USTB and USCC, is now extending its infrastructure to public equities, like stocks. Right? That's what they're talking about. The fintech firm on Wednesday announced the launch of, quote, opening bell, a platform that enables SEC registered public equities to be issued and traded directly on blockchain networks, and they're starting with Solana. Opening Bell supports natively issued regulatory compliant shares that interact directly with crypto wallets, DeFi protocols, and on chain marketplaces.
What could possibly freaking go wrong according to a release shared with the block? The platform eliminates reliance on centralized exchanges and legacy listing mechanisms offering continuous trading and real time settlement via blockchain native infrastructures. Quote, through opening bell, stock will become fully transferable, programmable, and integrated into DeFi, Super State CEO Robert Leshner said in the release, quote, this is about reengineering public markets for the modern financial stack, end quote. Oh, boy.
While several companies and projects are working on bridging public equities with blockchain infrastructures, Opening Bell appears to be the first to offer direct issuance and trading of SEC registered public shares on chain rather than synthetic or wrapped versions. In a letter last month to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission's crypto task force, Superstate was among several firms to propose an SCC backed framework to bring Wall Street stocks to the blockchain. Yay. We're going to the blockchain. SOL strategies. A Canadian public company focused on investing and building infrastructure for the Solana ecosystem, will be the first to list its common shares on Solana via opening bell.
The firm had previously initiated a process to uplist to Nasdaq and now aims to establish a dual market presence. Soul Strategies rebranded rebranded last year from Cypherpunk Holdings. As of March 31, Soul Strategies held, I don't know, some amount of their shit coin, whatever it was. Quote, listing Sol Strategies shares on opening bell reflects our conviction that the future of capital formation lies in programmable, open infrastructure powered by shitcoin number three, Leah Wald, CEO of Sol Strategies, said in the release.
Quote, this approach enables twenty four seven trading, instant settlement, and global access with deep liquidity, exactly what today's modern investors expect. Put a tie on that suit speak lady. Opening Bell is now onboarding both existing public companies and late stage private firms, particularly those from crypto native, venture backed, and traditional sectors. So there you go. Equities on the blockchain. Thankfully, they're gonna start with shitcoin equity shitcoin company equities, like this Sol Technologies or whatever the hell it was. So you'll have to wait for Chevron to get on the blockchain, but it's gonna happen, and that's gonna end up being quite a problem for New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, S and P five hundred. Well, not S and P, but, I mean, the Nasdaq Exchange, the, and the, New York Stock Exchange and Chicago.
I mean, that like, an I I think that even Texas is getting their own their own kind of stock exchange. All of these things are in danger because of this. It doesn't mean that it's good. I'm I'm actually not advocating for this. A twenty four seven market of everything may be may be a bad idea. I don't know. And then we've got we've got to start talking about circuit breakers. If this is really gonna be decentralized finance, who's are there gonna be circuit breakers? And if they are, how are they designed? Who designs them? And who can throw the circuit breaker? That's just one issue here.
In twenty four seven trading, especially for people that actually trade for a living, what's that going to do to their sleep? Could you imagine having to go to sleep when you know shit's trading twenty four seven? Yeah. In a very real way, that's already done. But at least they have the weekend to catch up on sleep. Not anymore. No. No. No. Hell no. We're going full bore, ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna be trading every second of every minute of every hour of every day on weekends, on holidays. Well, I mean, leap years.
They'll be we'll be trading in days that even don't freaking exist. I'm not sure that this is the best idea, but it is coming. So just be prepared. Finally, for today, I realize this is a short show, but honestly, after a hundred thousand dollar Bitcoin, there really wasn't much more that people were talking about, and I just didn't wanna harp on it because it is what it is. Cointelegraph, Helen Parks, Coinbase is going to acquire options trading platform, Derabit, for almost $3,000,000,000. Derabit's been around for a while, and now they're getting bought, dude. Coinbase, largest cryptocurrency exchange in US by trading volume, has agreed to acquire Derabit, one of the world's biggest crypto derivatives trading platforms.
What could possibly go wrong? Coinbase Global will will acquire them for about $3,000,000,000. The acquisition will allow Coinbase to expand into the profitable crypto derivatives market, oh, yay, and continue scaling the platform's global growth. Greg Tussar, Coinbase's vice president of institutional product, said in an announcement, quote, with Derabit's strong presence in professional client base, Coinbase is making its most substantial move yet to accelerate our international growth strategies, Ed. Following the deal success expected later in 2025, Darabit founders John and Marius Jensen will step away from the firm because they have taken all their money.
Their exit would mark the end of the joint venture that began in 2014, Darabit said in a statement. Until the deal is closed later this year pending regulatory approvals, Darabit will continue as with business as usual, quote, same platform, same team, same commitment to excellence in derivatives, the announcement noted. Oh god. We're excited to join forces with Coinbase to power a new era in global crypto derivatives, Darebit CEO Luc Strygers said adding, quote, as the leading crypto options platform, we've built a strong profitable business, and this acquisition will accelerate the foundation we laid while providing traders with even more opportunities across spot, futures, perpetuals, and options, all under one trusted brand, end quote.
God, the suit speak. It's all over the place. The announcement also mentioned that integrating Derabits technology with Coinbase's products will enable more efficient onboarding, enhanced fiat rails, and capital efficiency across the entire trading life cycle. You mean you can steal from people twenty four seven because they're fucking ignorant, and you're preying on that like the vultures that you are. But continuing, the $2,900,000,000 deal includes 700,000,000 in cash and 11,000,000 shares of Coinbase class a common stock. Quote, this transaction is subject to regulatory approvals, the announcement said.
Previous reports in March suggested that Coinbase and Derabit had alerted regulators in Dubai about the potential deal as do excuse me, as Derabit holds a license there, which would need to be transferred to Coinbase if the deal is successful. The report also previously suggested that a deal with Coinbase could value Deribit at between 4,000,000,000 and $5,000,000,000. Coinbase's Deribit acquisition marks a growing trend of large acquisitions in the cryptocurrency market. On May, rival exchange, Kraken, officially announced it was finalizing the acquisition of another derivatives trading platform called NinjaTrader so that they can offer futures trading.
Kraken previously said it entered into an agreement to acquire NinjaTrader for $1,500,000,000 subject to certain price adjustments. So consolidation in the suit world when it comes to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is occurring. It will not stop. It's going to get ugly. It's not a good situation. Stay away from all of these companies. Coinbase has never been on Bitcoin's side. Kraken, there used to be a time when Jesse Powell, the guy that started that, was a solid Bitcoiner, but he stepped away from the company and now Kraken is just a is just a pure straight up shitcoin exchange just like Coinbase is.
None of these companies are worth your salt. If you have any Bitcoin on either one of these things, please, for the love of God, get them off. Alright. So that's it for the day. Episode ten ninety one is in the bag. What are we looking at? We're looking at $101,375 on a bitcoin. Not much else to say. We'll we'll see what Trump does. We'll see what this announcement is. Who knows? Maybe it'll be good. I don't know. I I I just don't. I I hope it is. I mean, I I hope we can get back to doing what we what we've been doing, but there's a problem with that.
We all know that the system is broke. That's not a lie. You know it as much as I do. And here was the deal is that everybody you know, we we we got orange man in. And but even those people, I saw them. I saw what happened. Even the people that were, like, the bit some of the biggest cheerleaders for Orange Man getting into office, they a hundred days of looking at their port well, maybe not a hundred days. We'll say thirty five. We'll say a month. And, sure, that is way short term. But they're looking at the portfolios, and it was at one point or another, a lot of people were down by 20% in their retirement accounts, their investment accounts, every across the board, 20% down. And it just stays there.
It doesn't move. All the energy companies are just basically getting beat beat up around the head head and shoulders with low energy prices. Right? It's like a lot of people are hurting in a lot of different ways. Alright? Everybody everybody was is basically getting beat up financially. It doesn't take long for the cheerleaders of Orange Man to start turning tail and going, wait a minute. Wait. I didn't expect it to be this bad for this long even though it's only a month. Right? Now now the smart money is on waiting it out. That that's always the case no matter who the hell does what, where. You just be patient.
But it's hard to do that when you see that you're 20% down and you're close to retirement age or something like that. So you're gonna start turn you're gonna start doing the whole turncoat thing. We have to see what the hell orange man and g come up with. We have to see if there's any other deals on the table from all these other countries. We have to see what the announcement is actually going to be. So until we get a firm feel of what the hell's gonna happen, please understand that just because they put a Band Aid over this thing and the portfolios go back up to where they were and people breathe a sigh of relief does not mean that the underlying problem that's fucking up the financial markets and has been since 1971 isn't still present. It is.
We're printing money like it's going out of style, and it ain't just The US. You got derivatives of derivatives of derivatives that basically somehow or another affect the the bet on the bet on the bet on the bet is now somehow so powerful that it affects the roll of the fucking dice. Right? And that's in meat markets, that's in any commodity markets, that's in equity markets, that's in money markets, that's in interest markets, you name it. These this is a huge casino. And just because we possibly might get a deal with China does not mean that the fundamental aspects of what's broke is automatically fixed. It ain't.
It won't be. Only Bitcoin is the way. Bitcoin is the only way out. 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.
Introduction and Market Overview
Closing Thoughts on Market Dynamics
