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Episode 1171 of Bitcoin And . . . is LIVE!

Topics for today:

• SP/ARK Channel Factories Explained
• North Korea Targets Your Employees
• Purple Ties and FED Rate Cuts
• SEC Unleashes Shitcoin ETFs on Public

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Today's Articles:

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/print/ark-and-spark-the-channel-factories-print


https://cointelegraph.com/news/cz-crypto-seal-60-north-korean-hackers


https://decrypt.co/339925/myriad-users-betting-color-fed-chair-powell-tie


https://cointelegraph.com/news/fed-chair-powell-fomc-divided-additional-rate-cuts-2025


https://atlas21.com/canada-possible-32-million-seizure-at-tradeogre-exchange/


https://www.theblock.co/post/371205/australia-eases-licensing-rules-for-stablecoin-intermediaries


https://decrypt.co/340094/sec-clears-path-waves-of-crypto-etfs-new-listing-standards


https://bitcoinnews.com/adoption/santanders-openbank-bitcoin-trading/


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[00:00:02] David Bennett:

It is 08:32AM   Pacific Daylight Time. It's the September   2025.   This is episode eleven seventy one of Bitcoin, and we got all kinds of stuff for you on this Thursday.   It's all the news that you can use about Bitcoin and more. We're gonna start out with   CZ   sounding the alarm   as a seal team uncovers,   well, fake IT workers linked to North Korea, of course.   Then we're gonna have a relatively   long one   about Ark   as well as Spark.   These are apparently,   according to Roy Scheinfeld from Bitcoin Magazine, the channel factories that we've been waiting for.   I hope he gets a little bit in-depth   into   Ark and Spark. I've been waiting for these myself.  

Betting   on the color   of chairman Powell's   tie.   Yes. It happens. And then, of course, you know, of of course,   Jerome did actually, you know, come out and and give the FOMAC minutes. As you know,   we got a 25 bps,   basis cut on the Federal Reserve overnight,   lending   rate,   and immediately, Bitcoin dumped.   It was amazing. At this point, it is only   sell the news.   It doesn't and I've said this before, it doesn't matter what the news is, but there there had been times.   There had been times where, like, a piece of news would come out and instead of selling, people would actually buy a bunch of Bitcoin. It now it doesn't matter.   Any news at all, if it's got Bitcoin in the name or if it's something that directly affects Bitcoin,   you immediately dump it. Apparently, that is that is now the way. So we will we will talk about those,   that FOMAC meeting as well. And then Canada is gonna be in the news. They're stealing money again   while Australia,   in a surprising move,   relaxes rules on stablecoins.  

I would never have   thought that in, you know, a million   years.   And then the SEC has cleared the path for   ultimate   shitcoinery   at the industrial scale.   Get ready for it.   And Santander   is going to finish us out for the day. But first,   let's go on over and check out what CZ   is yelling about. He's sounding the alarm   as the SEAL team uncovers 60,   count them 60, fake IT workers linked to North Korea,   Zoltan Vardai,   killer name, dude, from Cointelegraph.   North Korean hackers   are stepping up efforts to infiltrate cryptocurrency companies by posing as IT workers,   raising fresh security concerns for the industry, well, according to Binance cofounder,   Changpeng Zhao,   and a team of ethical hackers.  

CZ sounded the alarm Thursday on x about the growing threat of North Korean hackers   seeking to infiltrate crypto companies through employment opportunities   and even bribing exchange staff for data access. And, yes, we've seen this before.   Quote, they pose as job candidates   to try to get jobs in your company   this gives them a foot in the door specifically for employment opportunities related to development   security   and finance   quote they   pose as employers and try to interview   and offer your employees   this is a weird sentence   during the interview   they will be a problem with Zoom   and they will send your employee   a link to an update   which contains a virus that will take over your employee's device.  

Oh.   Oh, so so in the act of poaching your employees,   they figured out a way to insert a virus into your system.   Man, that's just cruel. That's like adding insult to injury, man. But, anyway,   other North Korean agents   give employees coding questions   to send them malicious sample code later.   Proposes users to send malicious links to customer support,   or even just flat bribe your employees'   outsourced vendors   for data access.   Quote, to all crypto platforms,   train your employees to, you know, not download files and screen your candidates   carefully. Now, here's the full here's the full statement,   for it's just a screenshot from CZ.  

And, in in fact, he says all the things that that we were just talking about.   But, the one that I I really I I really   I gotta   I'm kinda floored by this one. This is actually kinda brilliant when you think about it   Because they're posing as employers.   Right? So if you're paying your employees   crap,   then they are an attack vector   that sits inside your own company.   So   holy shit.   Just read it again. They pose as employers   and try to interview or offer your employees   employment.   And during that interview,   they will become a problem with Zoom,   and they will send your employee a link to an update which contains a virus that will take over your employee's   device.  

Or they will give your employee a coding question and then later send them, quote, sample code.   Your attack vector as a company,   as an employer,   you are being attacked   through your own employees.   Now that's nothing new.   You know, I've I've I've gotten stuck when I was working at Texas Tech, I got a phishing email that looked like it was from Texas Tech human resources.   And, I mean, it had the seal of Texas Tech, everything.   It was very well done,   and I got screwed. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one in the organization that got screwed that way, but I definitely got hosed. And that was that was just   that was a phishing attempt from a completely different vector. Right? That was that was   being tricked into thinking that you had an internal   institutional email.  

Right? This   is attacking   people that may already be disgruntled with your company either be I don't know. Because let's just say that you're not paying them enough or   I don't know. The barbecue for the company isn't big enough. Who knows?   But   they are leveraging   the employee   itself.   Not only are they trying to become employees,   if they can't even do that, they've got a whole other team of people that are like, well, let's just go after the employees   that may be disgruntled with the company and offer them employment.   Because that way,   you have the employees direct attention.  

This is a very dangerous situation for crypto companies. I'm just saying. The warning   follows similar concerns from Coinbase,   which reported a new wave of threats just last month. In response, Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, introduced new internal security measures including requiring all workers   to receive in person training in The United States   while people with access to sensitive systems will be required to hold   US citizenship   as well as submit themselves to fingerprinting. Quote, we can collaborate with law enforcement,   but it feels like there's 500 new people graduating every quarter   from some kind of school they have, and that's their whole job, Armstrong told Cheeky Pint podcast   host,   John Collins.  

Now, Zao's warning   came as a group of ethical hackers called Security Alliance, or Seal   compiled the profiles   of at least 60   North Korean agents posing as IT workers under fake names seeking to infiltrate US crypto exchanges   and steal sensitive user data. Quote, North Korean developers are eager The   repository   The repository   contains key information on these impersonators including aliases,   fake names, emails used along with websites, both real and fake citizenships,   addresses, locations, and the numbers of firms that hired them.   Salary details,   GitHub profiles, and all other public associations are also included.  

In June, four North Korean operatives infiltrated multiple,   multiple crypto firms as freelance developers,   stealing a cumulative $900,000   from these startups   illustrating the growing threat Cointelegraph   reported.   The white hat seal team was formed to combat these exploits led by white hat hacker and paradigm researcher   Sam Czisan.   Samsung,   I guess, is how you pronounce it.   Brazil coordinated more than 900   hack related investigations   within a year of its launch, illustrating the growing need for ethical hackers, Cointelegraph reported   August   2024.  

Now North Korean hackers, like the infamous Lazarus groups, are the main suspects behind   some of the most devastating   cryptocurrency   heist,   including the 1,400,000,000   Bybit hack, which has been the industry's largest hack so far. And throughout 2024, North Korean hackers   stole over $1,340,000,000   worth of digital assets across 47   different incidents,   a 102%   increase from the 660,000,000   stolen in 2023.   If you are hiring,   you need to be extra careful   because now you're not just combating incompetence and people just lying to get a job.   Now you're hiring people that are extremely competent   and have nothing but ill will against you. So just   good God Almighty be aware.  

Let's shift gears completely   and talk about Ark   and Spark.   They're the channel factories we've been waiting for, Roy Scheinfeld out of Bitcoin Magazine.   Visions of future technology are often   prescient about the broad strokes while flubbing the details.   The tablets   in 2001 A Space Odyssey do indeed look like iPads,   but you never see the astronauts paying for subscriptions   or wasting hours on Candy Crush.   Channel factories are one vision that arose early in the history of Lightning Network   to address some of the challenges that Lightning has faced from the beginning.   Despite having grown to become Bitcoin's most successful layer two scaling solution   with instant and low fee payments, Lightning's scale   is limited   by its reliance on payment channels.  

Although Lightning shifts most transactions off chain, each payment channel still requires an on chain transaction to open and usually another one to close that channel.   As adoption grows, pressure on the blockchain grows with it. The need for a more scalable approach to managing channels is clear. Channel factories   were supposed to meet this need, but where are they?   In 2025,   subnetworks are emerging that revive the impetus of channel factories with some new details that vastly increase their potential.   They are natively interoperable with Lightning and achieve greater scale by allowing a group of participants   to open a shared multisig UTXO   and create multiple bilateral channels,   which reduces the number of on chain transactions   and improves   capital efficiency.  

Achieving greater scale by reducing complexity,   ARC and Spark perform the same function   as traditional channel factories with new designs and additional capabilities   based on shared UTXOs.   Channel factories one zero one.   Channel factories have been around since the inception of Lightning.   A factory   is a multiparty   contract   where multiple users, not just two as in Dreyja Poon   channels, cooperatively   lock funds in a single   multi sig UTXO.   They can open, close, and update channels off chain without updating the blockchain for each operation.   Only when participants   leave   or the factory   dissolves   is an on chain transaction needed.  

Channel factories offer a number of important advantages.   By enabling multiple off chain channels to be spun up from a single on chain transaction,   they dramatically reduce the load on the base chain.   Participants can rebalance funds amongst themselves   efficiently without needing to touch the chain at all. New channels   can be created on demand inside the factory with no cost beyond what was already paid at the factory's creation.   The ability to tweak the ratio of channels to on chain transactions   makes channel factories one of the most capital efficient scaling approaches available for Lightning today.   Still, it's no coincidence   that channel factories have largely remained on the drawing board despite their promise.  

A channel factory generally requires all participants to be online and cooperative to update its state unless special arrangements or protocols are in place to handle asynchrony.   For example,   Lightning service providers can't use channel factories to manage downstream channels with their users   because all peers   need to be known at the time that the factory is created.   Without a way to incrementally   add peers to an existing factory,   the model becomes impractical for nodes whose scalability is built into their business model as is the case with, well, Lightning Service Providers.   Moreover,   handling exits from the factory,   especially when participants are unresponsive   or malicious,   involves complex mechanisms that might require participants   to sign a large tree   of potential exit transactions covering   every possible combination of cooperative and uncooperative   behaviors   imagine a five person factory where one peer goes offline or goes rogue   each of the remaining peers would need pre negotiated   pre signed exit paths for every eventuality.  

Without automation   or covenant support, managing this becomes a combinatorial   and operational   nightmare.   These technical and UX constraints makes it hard to deliver a seamless user experience   or to scale such systems in production.   We've seen several proposals   to optimize channel factories since 2019   with continuing interest but little production deployment.   Well, that is until now.   So here's a brief history of channel factory proposals.   One early and very comprehensive proposal for channel factories came from Conrad Buchart,   Christian Decker,   and Roger   Watenhofer   in their 2017 paper titled   Scalable Funding of Bitcoin Micropayment Channel Networks.  

Their design allows a group of participants to lock funds in a single multiparty UTXO   and open multiple channels off chain between pairs of participants.   Each state transaction,   channel open,   close, or rebalance,   requires a complete set of pre signed transactions.   This ensures that every participant has a cryptographically   secure way to exit the factory if needed.   However, the Bootchart   Decker Wattenhoffer   construction   has a serious scalability limitation.   Any update to the factory state requires   every participant to be online   and sign off on that change.  

As the number of participants increases, the number of required signatures   and pre signed exit paths   grows exponentially   as do the coordination overhead,   the storage burden,   and the headaches.   Efforts to improve on this model have leveraged newer Bitcoin features.   Taproot simplifies the structure of exit transactions by allowing their conditions to be encapsulated   in a Merkle tree of scripts   with only the sending path revealed at redemption.   This reduces both transaction size and privacy leakage.   OpCheck   Template Verify   or OpCTV,   a proposed   soft fork, would dramatically streamline factories by enabling pre committed exit paths   without the need for exhaustive   pre signing   with OpC TV, a factory could commit to a set of exit transactions   at the time of creation   each participant would know that they can unilaterally   exit in a well defined way,   reducing both interactivity   and operational complexities.  

Despite such progress,   practical deployment has lagged.   The barriers to full participant interactivity and complex signing schemes, especially in the absence of OpC TV,   are simply too high.   ARC and Spark,   Next generation   channel factories.   Two recent projects,   ARC and SPARC,   reimagine the channel factory with different tradeoffs.   While neither project explicitly markets itself as a channel factory,   their architectures   effectively realize many of the goals that early channel factory proposals aimed for.   Since both are based on a shared UTXO and both are natively compatible with Lightning,   Spark and Arc represent modern incarnations   of channel factories that leverage today's tooling and assumptions.  

At last,   both aim to preserve the benefits of channel factories,   reduce chain usage,   scalability   or scalable liquidity allocation,   and while resolving key weaknesses around liveliness,   interactivity,   as well as exit complexity.   And most importantly,   both projects take a   pragmatic   approach to scaling.   They work within Bitcoin's current consensus rules, avoiding the need for soft forks   or new opcodes to be useful today.   UTXO   sharing.   ARC introduces a UTXO sharing model built around the concept of virtual UTXOs.   Instead   of assigning   users   individual on chain outputs,   ARC lets them transact off chain using a shared pool of liquidity   managed by an ARC server.  

Users transact by requesting that a new distribution of v t x o's or virtual   yeah the the the virtual u t x o's the v t x o's be included in the next round when the arc server creates an arc block   aggregating recent user activity and posts a new shared u t x o to the blockchain   So, ARK lets users pass   VTXOs   among themselves   and periodically   settle the distribution   of the VTXOs   in the shared UTXO   via batched anchor transactions   on the blockchain.   Users can also perform   out of round   transactions which instantly move   VTXOs   between users without waiting for the next round of anchor transactions.  

In this case,   the arc server cosigns the out of round payment   which may be comprised   hold on   compromised.   Let's do that again. In this case, the arc server cosigns the out of round payment   which may be compromised   if the ARC server and the sender collude   to double spend the VTXO.   However, the receiver can decide whether to accept the risk on the basis   of the ARC server's   reputation   and take the funds immediately   or to wait until the next round.   Spark? Well, Spark takes a different path to shared UTXOs   that builds on the concept of state chains.   The fulcrum of Spark shared signing protocol   is the Spark operators, or SOs,   who come together in a consortium called a Spark entity, or SE.  

When a user joins spark, they deposit funds into a shared signature address controlled by themselves   and the   spark entity.   The SE   and the user pre sign   a withdrawal transaction ensuring that the user can always exit unilaterally.   The payment occurs whenever a new withdrawal transaction appears, which creates a new current state.   Over time,   the history of transactions   takes on a tree structure branching off from the original shared UTXO   and each terminal transaction owned by a user is called a leaf.   Naturally, after each change, the SOs   must delete past keys used for the past owner,   I e, pruning old leaves.  

And only one of the SOs   in the SE   must do so for the system to work securely. This allows Spark to offer   trust   minimized self custodial   off chain payments while keeping the base UTXO   unchanged.   Like Arc, Spark also introduces some new assumptions about trust.   Spark requires at least one SO,   or some higher configurable   threshold,   in the SE   to act honestly and delete outdated withdrawal transactions.   The result is a moment in time trust model,   in which trust is only required   at the time of transfer.   The system maintains perfect forward security as long as operators delete their key shares after a transfer.   Once the keys are deleted,   even a compromised or malicious operator cannot retroactively   affect past transactions   or steal funds, and a deletion by any SO   counts for all the SOs   in the SE   distributing   responsibility   among multiple operators.  

Lightning   interoperability.   To interop with Lightning, both Spark and Arc rely on swaps   facilitated by LSPs.   That's Lightning Service Provider. These LSPs must participate in a given fork or rather in a given Arc or Spark entity   to act as bridges.   They execute Lightning payments on behalf of users in exchange for the assets inside the respective systems,   VTXOs   in ARC,   and leaves in Spark.   The process is secured by   atomicity   atomicity,   like atomically, you know, like atoms   atomicity.   The LSP   receives only the VTXO   or LEAF once it can prove that the Lightning payment has been successfully completed   by providing a preimage.  

This allows users to make Lightning payments without operating a Lightning node themselves,   and it anchors both systems firmly into the broader Lightning ecosystem.   If it walks like a duck, well,   channel factories increase scale by leveraging shared UTXOs   to amplify Lightning scalability.   By that measure,   ARC and Spark are unequivocally   channel factories,   albeit sporting the latest fashions in v t x o and state chain technology.   Given what shared u t x o models like these are already achieving, we can expect great things from the channel factory labs   in the near future,   especially if new opcodes are added to l one, and that means the actual Bitcoin   code.  

Bitcoin is l one or layer one. That's what they mean.   Both ARC and Spark are significant achievements in themselves, but they also validate Lightning.   Without being too able to interoperate with other subnetworks like liquid, Fediment, Casu, etcetera,   these revamped channel factories would be far less valuable, and it's Lightning   that lets them interoperate   virtually anywhere Bitcoin can go.   The emergence of Spark and Arc is not a sign of Lightning's limits,   but of its indispensability   in today's   Bitcoin economy.   So there you go.  

I   yes. It's all of this may be a bit above our pay grade in so far that there's only so much that can really be described as to how this stuff works   in an article out of Bitcoin Magazine.   Unless you wanna dig into, like, a shinobi article,   which can get very, very technical.   It's just that   one of the problems with lightning that we've had   is that like like my son. Take my son as an example. He just turned 13 years old.   Be before his birthday,   he spun up a a full bit a Bitcoin full node,   not even pruned a Bitcoin full node, waited weeks for the initial block download,   spun up a lightning node after it got set, got got electrics on there. I mean, did he and he did it all himself. Very, very proud of him.  

He's got a lightning channel.   Whoop dee doo. So what? He can't use it. Why? No channels open.   So I had to open a channel with him from my lightning node.   And even then, he's got no outgoing liquidity.   He's he's got incoming liquidity because I provided him a channel with, like, I think I put, like, you know, it's it's it's for demonstration purposes, I just put 20,000 sats on it. It's not even really that much of a usable channel when you think about it. But it's he had 20,000   sats of incoming liquidity.   So   what can he do with that? Not a whole lot.  

In fact,   he can only receive sats   up to, you know, about 20,000 sats.   It gets a little fuzzy, you know, when you start hitting the limits, but he only had incoming liquidity.   So I put out, you know, a message on Noster, and I said, hey. Here's my son's lightning node. Here's the address.   If anybody wants to open up a channel with him, please do so. And somebody did.   Not only   did that help with a little bit more of incoming liquidity   for my son's node,   it gave him outgoing liquidity as well.   And he was finally able to use his node.   Dude, that's   that's because my my son is really interested in how all this stuff works.  

Imagine if you're somebody who doesn't give a shit. You just wanna be able to buy a cigar.   That that's what lightning what these channel factories are supposed to help with.   Arc, especially, when it first came out, when it when the white paper first dropped, it was supposed to clear all that shit up. This incoming versus outgoing liquidity,   all that stuff.   I'm really hoping that we start seeing more of this functionality   come up   for Lightning,   but I'm also   still looking at things like e cash and fediments and cashew and all that kind of stuff   because at one point or another   this is all going it's it's like it's almost like an amorphous mass just spinning out in space   And the gravity is starting to pull it all together, but slowly, and we can't really get a feel of what the shape of this looks like. And it won't be until we reach a critical mass on all these technologies   forcing themselves together, and it ignites   like a sun   in space. And then it starts,   you know, gleaming brilliance   over everything, and then you can see   what this means. Right now,   only the really highly technical people, the guys that are that are crawling around the guts   of channel factories   and fediments and cashew,   only those guys can actually see the potential.  

And I'll bet you my ass that even they are going, I'm not sure how all this is going to work together.   But I guarantee you the way the universe works,   all of these technologies that are going to smash together,   they're gonna hit a critical mass, and they're going to ignite   like a sun. And the second that happens,   we will know what the hell's going on. Hey. You wanna bet on what color   Chairman Powell's tie was yesterday? Well, Myriad users are betting   on that exact thing.   This is from decrypt.co.   A peculiar but revealing market is getting serious traction on Myriad.   That's a, like, poly market. Right? It's betting. It's a place where you can bet on stuff.  

Will fed chair Jerome Powell wear a purple tie during the September FOMAC press conference?   As of now, the crowd overwhelmingly   believes, yes, he will. But it's not just about fashion.   This prediction market taps into a deeper symbolism of around the Fed's public identity.   Public identity.   According to a recent report by Columbia Business School,   Powell's choice of a purple tie is no accident.   Brett House, economist and professor at Columbia,   noted that Powell's consistent use of purple is a part of reinforcing the Federal Reserve's image as a nonpolitical   entity in the era of heightened polarization.  

Here here's what's known.   When asked, Powell said purple was once just a personal preference. But over time,   he began to see its utility, quote, maybe not red,   maybe not   blue, so I wind up wearing purple.   He saw purple as neutral ground signaling a lack of alignment with either side of the political spectrum, and lately,   it's become something of a signature.   He explicitly   frames this aesthetic, this tie color, as helping project the message that the Fed is strictly nonpolitical,   not embracing party red,   not embracing blue team, but purple in between.   So when people are putting money on Powell wears purple, they aren't just betting on war wardrobe chance.  

They're betting on consistency,   signaling,   and public messaging.   Here's what the market looks like on Myriad. The question is, will Jerome Powell wear a purple tie during the September FOMAC press conference?   The large sentiment says yes.   Significant volume is leaning that way. Exact figures shift with time.   Resolution rules?   It must be purple or a pattern where purple is the dominant color.   Shades like lavender or or violet qualify.   Red, blue, or burgundy do not.   The market typically closes shortly before the event, and official fees slash video resources will decide.   Because of Powell's established pattern and public statements, the yes side seems to carry weight beyond random   guesswork.  

Here are things that could upset the odds:   lighting or camera differences.   A tie that looks violet on camera might register differently under stage lights or in certain video streams.   Tie patterns and mixed colors.   A tie with multiple colors where purple isn't dominant could, well, create disputes.   Last minute changes?   Pal could change his wardrobe plan.   Things like his stylist decisions,   availability of a tie, or even mood might matter.   So there you go. There's there's the bet.   So   did he wear purple?   He, in fact, did wear a purple tie at the September FOMAC press conference, which occurred yesterday   about a couple of hours after they, re decreased the federal fund overnight rate by 25 bps.  

So Fed chair   Powell in the meeting or in that press conference   said specifically,   and this is another story, that FOMAC is divided   on additional rate cuts in 2025.   Hey.   I thought we were supposed to get multiple rate cuts this year, and now already we were getting some hawkish comments   even though we just reduced the federal funds rate. But Vince Quill from Cointelegraph   tells us much more.   US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said that the 19 members   of the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMAC,   remain divided on additional interest rate cuts in 2025.   At Wednesday's press conference after the Fed's 25 basis point rate cut, Powell said that the central bank is trying to balance its dual mandate.  

Ah, Dodd, there's three mandates, though. Right?   Moderate long term interest rates is the third mandate,   but he's talking about the dual mandate   of maximum employment   and price stability in an unusual environment where labor market   is weakening even as inflation remains elevated. And Powell said, quote, you will have seen   that we have 10% participants out of 19   who wrote down two or more cuts for the remainder of the year and nine who wrote down fewer than that. In fact,   a good number of cases,   no more cuts.   No more cuts.  

You're pissing people off there, Jerome. Powell said   that the median   FOMAC projection from the Federal Reserve summary of economic projections,   the Fed's quarterly outlook for The United States economy that informs interest rate decisions,   projected interest rates at 3.6%   at the 2025,   3.4%   by the 2026,   and 3.1   at the 2027.   Quote, I would encourage people as always   to look at the SEP   through the lens of probability.   And so there are different possible outcomes and likelihoods rather than a certainty, Powell said.   Sounds like a hawk to me. Today's rate cut is the or, well, yesterday's rate cut is the 2025   and brings The US interest rate down to a range between 44.25%.  

Crypto investors continue to speculate   on the likelihood of additional cuts in 2025   as they have seen   a bullish catalyst for risk on asset prices, which benefit from credit expansion   and suffer from credit contraction.   Quote, roughly $7,200,000,000,000   to 7,500,000,000,000.0   remain parked in money market funds   whose yields will now begin to fall.   And that creates a powerful incentive for capital to move back into equities and alternatives like   crypto,   Matt Menna,   crypto research strategist at exchange traded product provider twenty one shares predicted.   Mina said that Bitcoin is poised for a quarter four rally that will likely catapult its price   past its all time high of about a 124,000.  

62%   of traders on poly markets say a prediction,   is that the   BTC will hit a 130,000   in 2025.   Don't believe the numbers.   Just stack sats. What you know, whatever. Whatever, you know, whatever Mina is saying about this price projection,   it's just take it with a grain of salt, please. Nobody knows what the hell is gonna happen.   But   those are some relatively   hawkish   comments   out of the Fed   right after   they just cut 25 basis points.   So we're we're gonna have to see. Now the question becomes, and let me get TradingView up, has   the thirty year yield   and the ten year yield   been   affected   by yesterday's   rate cut? Well, it so happens   that the   ten year yield   rose.  

Let's see.   Let's see. Where was it?   Let's see. We got that news at roughly 11:00 on Wednesday.   Okay. So here it is.   Wednesday, September 17 at 11:00AM   my time, which is Pacific,   we had a bump   of point 62%   in the yield   of the ten year.   And then it came back down to where it had been previously.   By early this morning at 2AM my time, it came back down to 4.045%.   However,   it is now sitting at 4.12%   after a couple of really large green candles.   And green, in this case, does not necessarily mean good, especially for people who like to take a little bit of risk. What did thirty year do?   It has the   exact exact same candlestick pattern.  

However, they're saying   that and and for the ten year,   hey, their their numbers their numbers work.   It was supposed to be between 44.25%.   And the ten year is at 4.12%,   so that that works.   The thirty year, however,   has jumped to 4.73%.   So   not exactly good for homeowners because that's sort of the thirty year 30 loan.   It's   okay. It'll be fine. We're chilling out here with Oshi. Circle p is open for business. The circle p is where I bring plebs with goods and services. They're just like you.   They're not big companies. They don't have money for advertising.   You know? They do what they can.  

And I like to give them a little spotlight here on The Bitcoin and Show through the Circle p because they've got stuff for sale. And you might wanna buy that stuff for sale for Bitcoin.   Because if you're not selling your goods and services in Bitcoin, you ain't in the Circle p today,   it's Oshigood   at oshigood dot us. Oshigood got some of the best hollow butter huddle bars.   He's got   mint   chocolate huddle bars. He's got banana chocolate chip huddle bars. He's got what else has he got? He's got BTC nodes.   Well, actually,   BTHC   nodes. They're little chocolate candies,   with THC in them, but he's best known for huddle butter. What is hodl butter? Well,   no better way than to give   you Oshi's own   definition. Hodl butter starts with local hand picked and sorted pecans straight from Southeast   United States.  

More nuanced than a two hour Bitcoin podcast, this small batch craft delicacy can be enjoyed as a topping on anything edible or just straight out of the reusable glass jar itself.   Ingredients are pecans,   maple sugar, sea salt flakes, cinnamon, and black pepper.   It's that that   that   cinnamon and black pepper   just that   he's got them in 16 ounce jars, and you, again, can buy them in SATs. He also has them in let's see. Was it   eight ounce jars as well? So why don't you go over to oshigood.us,   oshi,   0shi,   oshi good dot us.   Pick yourself up some huddle butter or anything else that he's got in stock because he usually sells out pretty quick once he manufactures   these things.  

Make sure that you use Bitcoin and in the coupon code. That lets Oshi know that I made a sale for him. And in the value for value advertising model that I've developed here on the Bitcoin and podcast,   he gets to determine   how much that sale was worth to him.   And if it was worth something to him, he cuts me that in sats   and either gives me a zap or some other way. It's   we the circle p is not we don't do contracts here. This is a digital handshake,   and it's just   good plebs   trying to help other good plebs. So do your part. Help Oshi   at oshi good dot u s buy some of his stuff and make sure that you use Bitcoin and   in the coupon code.  

Let's run the numbers.   CNBC   Futures and Commodities.   Energy sector getting a hurt put all over it. Oil, West Texas Intermediate down two thirds of a point to $63.61.   Britt Nor' Seed down three quarters   to $67.44.   Natural gas, however, is being pummeled.   It's being beaten like a red headed stepchild.   4.87%   to the downside, back below $3   with you, natural gas,   to $2.94   per thousand. I guess the new I guess news came out that maybe we were gonna have a   milder winter   this year because, yes, news like that will send   natural gas down, like, by five points. Gasoline is down a point itself   to hovering just right around $2   per gallon. And Merban crude,   everybody's   light sweet crude is down two thirds of a point to $70.51   per barrel.  

Shiny metal rocks are having a bad day too. Gold is down 1.13%   to $36.75   and 7 dimes. Silver is down   a quarter of a point, but platinum is up one and a quarter while copper is down point eight. Palladium   rounding us out,   it's two thirds percent to the upside.   Then ag,   not looking good.   Not not looking good at all,   which is odd because all the reports that I'm seeing from harvests,   yes, I I follow a bunch of farmers   on Twitter, and all of them are complaining about wet conditions   and high moisture rates in their grain harvest, whether it's canola, corn,   wheat,   sorghum. It it doesn't matter. They're all having problems.  

Right? That should actually send   grain commodity prices up, but we may not see that until numbers from the silos start coming in   because harvest is in full swing right now. Some of them are coming to the end of their harvest.   Most of them that I see are are either just beginning or in the middle. So   right now, wheat is down point four seven. Soybeans are down point seven.   Corn is down point six.   Sugar is no. Actually, chocolate is the biggest loser today. It's down 2.15%.   The only thing making any traction is coffee. It's one and a quarter percent to the upside.   Live cattle are up a half. Lean hogs are up a quarter, and feeder cattle are up three quarters of a point.  

The Dow is up a quarter, and the S and P is up a half. Nasdaq is up over 1%,   and the S and P Mini is up almost a full percentage point.   Bitcoin chilling out.   117,006   no. 760.   That's a $2,350,000,000,000   market cap, and we can finally get 32.1   ounces of our favorite shiny metal rock with our one Bitcoin, of which there are   19,922,498.05   of.   Average fees per block remain stable, 0.03   BTC, taking fees on a per block basis.   There are about 60 blocks carrying a 135,000   unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear   at high and low priority rates of 3 Satoshis per vbyte.   And hash rate has fallen again. We are now down to 986   exahashes per second.  

Mining death spiral is imminent.   The Bitcoin and podcast has a website,   bitcoinandshow.com.   That's bitcoinandshow.com.   Go subscribe. Give me your email. Don't worry. I'm not gonna sell it. I'm not gonna give it away. I'm not gonna leak it. I'm not gonna do any of that crap.   If you wanna know, like, an an you know, especially when, like, I finally drop a new episode of the cathedral series, You'll get an email, and it will have a link to it. It hey, man. Sign up at bitcoinandshow.com.   You can also that's also a place that you can support the show.   If you want to, I've got a tier that's, like, $50 a year.  

Yeah. I mean, it's like if if you're getting value out of this show,   then show me some value back. And you can do that at bitcoinandshow.com.   That's bitcoinandshow,all1word,.com.   Go there. Sign up. Throw me some   money. Not to put too fine a point on it.   Okay. From yesterday's   show, The Third Mandate,   progressive   hold on. This is   progressively   worse   With 5,000 sats thank you, brother. Says, here's some sats for a new cat toy or for some vet bills, whichever comes first. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Jason High with 2,000 says, thanks for the show. I appreciate that, sir.   Yodle   or Yodle. Sorry. It's always Yodle. It can't be Yodle. That would not make any sense. Yodle   with 513   SAT says, not a lot of chatter about MSTR   slash MSTY   or treasury stocks these days.  

Yeah.   Amazing how that shit works. Right?   Pies with a thousand. Thank you, sir. No, thank you.   Code with 500   says,   buuced.   Actually, he says,   buh   Welcome to part two of the news that you could use.   Them Canadians   up there in Canadia are going crazy.   A possible $32,000,000   seizure at TradeOgre   exchange   has apparently   occurred. This is out of atlas21.com.   According to The Rage,   the cryptocurrency   exchange TradeOgre,   known for its non KYC   policy   and popular among Monero users, is at the center of a controversy   that has seen over $32,000,000   disappear.  

The platform, which only allowed registration via email,   abruptly ceased all public communication   two months ago,   leaving its website offline   since July   '29   or July 29.   On September 16, for the first time after nearly two months,   the exchange's funds began moving to an address reportedly controlled by the Canadian government.   According to ARCIM intelligence data, in just over four hours, the linked Bitcoin address   accumulated more than a 126   BTC, which is about $15,000,000,   all originating   from trade over. On September 10,   an off return transaction   made by the non custodial exchange,   ChangeNow,   displayed the following message.  

Quote,   crypto assets controlled by the RCMP,   Crypto   Act IFS   control   Par La   GRC.   And RCMP   means Royal Canadian Mounted Police.   Seemingly referring to Canada's National Police Force,   The same message also appeared in an Ethereum transaction associated with the draining of another   $17,000,000   worth of ether.   The situation raises significant   legal questions, the rage reports.   Even if the Canadian government had indeed confiscated the funds,   it would raise serious ethical concerns. Funds held on a custodial exchange do not belong to the platform operators,   but instead to their customers.  

And using a non KYC exchange, at least for now, is not a crime.   The lack of a legal requirement for the Canadian government to publicly announce seizures makes the situation even more ambiguous.   According to The Rage, the op return message   and the Ethereum   IDM   message could represent, one, a prank blaming the Canadian government for a hack or exit scam,   Two, an attempt by RCMP   officers   or hold on. Nope. An attempt by a single   RCMP   officer   to ridicule users who lost millions of dollars.   Three, an actual government operation carried out in a questionable manner.   So far, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police   have not responded to the rage's request for comments.  

Trade ogre users remain uncertain about the fate of their funds.   So   if   what we've read here, boys and girls, is that the RCMP   basically heisted all of the money off of this trade ogre exchange,   and Lola leads from the rage, and that's a a great outfit, by the way. I I really like the rage, is suggesting   that this is illegal   because that those funds really belong to the users. And while she's correct,   there is a fourth possibility here   that the RCMP   sees a way   to docks these users. And here's how they'll do it.   In a couple of days, the RCMP will probably well, this is the way that I see it happening. Okay? I don't know if it'll happen. Alright? So so don't take me at my word, but this is a possibility   that the RCMP   could, in a couple of days or a couple of weeks, announce,   yes. We did take this money.  

Yes, we acknowledge that it is not our money.   Yes,   you have, as a customer of TradeOgre, the ability to get your money back. And here's how you're gonna do it. You're gonna bring your Canadian   ID   or driver's license or passport or whatever.   You're gonna give us your name, your address,   your wallet addresses,   like your account number at TradeOgre or however it was that Trade Ogre was doing the accounting of who owned what,   and we're gonna want   the destination   address of where you want this shit sent.   And it doesn't I mean, honestly, it cost the RCMP   virtually   nothing to do this.  

Sure. It'll it'll cost a couple of officers some time and, you know, probably like, I don't know, maybe like two or three different staff members. Yes. So that'll cost to be able to to do all this, you know? But guess what they get out of it?   Get thousands   thousands of people who self dox themselves   because they want the money, which means they got KYC'd   anyway.   It's a it's a completely different way to shotgun   KYC. This time, it's not tray it's not the exchanges that are doing it. No. No. No. No. It's just the government of Canada doing it, or at least in this case, their law enforcement extension of the of the   Canadian government.  

See how this works?   And that's exactly what I expect to have happen.   I exactly expect the RCMP and the GFC or whoever the hell else that that group was   to come out and say, sure, you can get your money back. Make sure you bring your driver's license.   Now, on to Australia.   This is surprising. This is out of the block. Naga Ivan Namoyo   is writing this one. Australia eases.   They actually   eased   licensing rules for stablecoin   intermediaries.   Australia Securities and Investment Commission on Thursday   announced a class exemption that lets licensed   intermediaries   distribute stablecoins   without requiring separate regulatory approvals,   which is a first   for that country's crypto rules.  

Stablecoin intermediaries   are entities like crypto exchanges and brokers or platforms that facilitate the distribution trading or transfer of   stablecoins to users without creating the stablecoins   themselves.   Firms overseen by Australian financial services will be able to offer   Fiat peg digital assets without   holding a separate   AFS   market   or clearing license according to Thursday's notice.   The relief   will take effect once the instrument is registered on the Federal Register of Legislation.   By lowering interim   licensing frictions for intermediaries   of AFS issued stablecoins,   Australia is sketching the contours of its crypto regulatory framework while preserving consumer protections.  

For stablecoin issuers, it offers a clear route to distribution ahead of formal payments and platform legislation.   The measure arrives   via ASIC's   stablecoin   distribution exemption instrument,   which temporarily,   removes all licensing obligations for secondary distributors   of a named stablecoins   subject to consumer safeguards.   Distributors   must, for retail clients, make the issuer's product disclosure statement available, and the relief sunsets on 06/01/2028.   So they got a few years.   Initially, the instrument list Catena   Digital,   Pty Limited   and its   AUDMA stablecoin as the initial name stablecoin and issuer,   ASIC   indicated   that it may extend the rule to additional issuers as more stablecoins   secure AFS licensure.  

The exemption is meant as a bridge to forthcoming national legislation.   The government's March 2025 policy outline proposes a dual track regime   covering digital asset platforms and payment stablecoins. It also   explicitly flags that businesses will not need a financial market license   just to provide certain stablecoins   and wrap tokens under the new settings.   More broadly,   stablecoin regulation is taking root in several jurisdictions.   The United States under Donald Trump recently passed, well, the Genius Act. Locations like Hong Kong and China are also working on stablecoin rules,   albeit with different approaches.  

Yeah. You you think? So in a surprising move,   one of the most authoritarian,   totalitarian   states in the world, and that being Australia,   has actually relaxed these rules, which leads me   to a conjecture. What if what what if   stablecoins really are designed by governments? Because it there's always been   well, the CIA   came out with Bitcoin.   I don't know. I don't think so.   However, it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't go shit. We gotta wrap our heads around this real quick. So here's what we're gonna do.   We're gonna make this thing called a stable coin, but we're and we're gonna let that go underneath the shadow. You know, we're we're gonna let Tether do whatever it is that they're gonna do with it. We're gonna let Circle do whatever they we're we're really not gonna we're really not gonna make that much noise about it. But here and this is for all western countries. This isn't just like The United States. I'm saying a cabal of people get into a room, have a very expensive lunch,   do some hookers and blow,   and then after a while, they retreat to the man cave with a bunch of brandies and yet more cigars and say to each other, each other?  

What we're gonna do is we're gonna we're gonna engage in some misdirection here. We're gonna have these stable coins over here, which we invented, but we're gonna let these pseudo,   you know,   government controlled entities like Tether and Circle, we're gonna let those guys handle that shit. We're really not gonna talk about them for at least next three, maybe four, five years.   In the meantime, however, what we are going to start hammering is the idea of a CBDC,   a central bank digital currency.   That's what's gonna scare the piss out of   everybody. And then when they get scared enough, they're gonna look at stablecoins and go, there's the pressure release valve.  

The trick is we own both of them.   It would not surprise me in the least.   Meanwhile, the SEC   has cleared a path for waves of shitcoinery,   the likes of which you have never seen,   crypto ETFs,   because they've   provided us with new listing standards, and Vince de Aquino from Decrypt   describes it well.   The US Securities and Exchange Commission signed off Wednesday on a new generic listing standards   for commodity based trusts,   a move that analysts say could swing the door wide open for crypto products beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.   This is exactly what happened with Shitcoins,   ICOs,   altcoins.  

There was a couple of them.   Yeah. You had Litecoin. You had Bitcoin. You had Litecoin. You had Doge.   And then in 2015,   here comes freaking Ethereum.   And after that, all hell breaks loose.   Well, the new standards approved for Nasdaq's c b o e b z x and n y s e arca   now allows trust that meet defined criteria to list   without a separate commission order.   They bar leveraged and inverse structures, but they do create a pathway for commodity   or crypto linked products to qualify more quickly. Quote, it was expected,   but big. Because it's gonna mean that about 12 to 15 coins are already good to go, Eric Balchunas,   senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence,   told Decrypt in a call.  

Quote, you start getting the coins coming in waves, he said, adding   that this factor is, quote, pretty big considering that right now,   only two really exist under   the 33 act.   Balchunas was pointing to the Securities Act of 1933,   often shortened to the 33 act.   It is a US statute that governs the initial offer and sale of securities   to the public and requires issuers to register their products   with the SEC and provide full, fair disclosure in a prospectus.   That statute has long been,   quote, the more appropriate place to file them for commodity style funds like Spider Gold Shares and BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust, Baljunas explained. Quote, it's gonna be real nice for investors to have 33 act spot ETFs   with reasonable fees and low trading spreads in the ETF wrapper, which has been vetted by the Securities and Exchange Commission.  

It's a beautiful thing, Balchina said.   No, Eric. It's not.   This is shit coinery on an industrial scale, and you should be calling it out, but you're not.   It's bad enough that we have Ether   as an ETF.   I don't need a Doge ETF. I don't need a Litecoin ETF.   This is ridiculous.   But   continuing in a section on the discussions   around the standards,   the SEC said that the rules are designed to help prevent fraudulent   and manipulative   acts and practices while improving market transparency.   These steps help perfect the mechanism of a free and open market in a national market system, the discussion reads.   In any case, the standards would require underlying   assets to trade on surveilled markets,   have a futures history,   or already back an exchange traded fund with significant exposure.  

Trusts   must also publish daily holdings, net asset values, and liquidity policies while market makers   face trading limits and firewalls to block misuse   of non public information.   Still, Balchunas thinks the SEC's latest action   sets the stage for the broadest broadest expansion of crypto ETFs   since spot Bitcoin products just, debuted last year.   Asked about ETF expectations   for the near term or within the year, Balchuna said that he sees Solana   and, of course, as I said, Litecoin   leading the next wave of approvals, quote, you're not going to see anything on one day,   Balchunas said.  

Solana and Litecoin ETFs could be the ones that come out first probably within a month, he said, adding that Dogecoin   oh, for fuck's sake. Why am I calling this so right?   Dogecoin could follow soon after.   An XRP ETF, meanwhile, may lag a bit because, quote, the futures aren't exactly six months old, which is a criterion,   so they might be a little later than the other ones. None of this crap needs to come to market.   None of this needs to come to market. This is all garbage.   It's   this is like   reliving   2017   all over again.  

It's it's just it's awful.   They got a whole new round   of dumbass   vacuum headed morons   waiting in the wings with real money, but in this case,   other people's money   to invest in the same shit that we called out as crap   a decade ago almost.   It's bad. It's bad. It's bad.   Maybe Spain's   Santander   Bank   will end us on a good note for this Thursday. Bitcoin news, Alex Larry writing,   Santander's   OpenBank   launches Bitcoin trading for retail customers. Oh, thank god it's not Doge.   OpenBank,   the fully digital arm of Spain's   Santander Group, has launched digital assets training   trading for retail clients in Germany.  

The move is a big step for one of Europe's largest financial institutions into the digital asset space   with Spain to follow in the coming weeks.   The new service allows open bank customers to buy, sell, and hold Bitcoin as well as the four top altcoins,   shitcoin number one, shitcoin number two, shitcoin number three, and shitcoin number four. They don't even need to be named.   It's crap. It is a list of shit.   But   it'll be directly on the bank's investment platform, so yay. The service sits alongside OpenBank's traditional investment products such as stocks, funds, ETFs, and robo advisory services.   By trading within its own platform,   OpenBank eliminates the need for customers to transfer funds to third party exchanges.  

The service is also under the European Union's new market and crypto assets regulation,   and we all know what that shit means,   Cote de Monteverde,   head of crypto at Grupo Santander, said, quote, by incorporating   the main cryptocurrencies   in our investment platform,   We are responding   to the demand of some of our customers   and continue to strengthen a broad range of products and services through an agile, simple technology platform backed by one of the world's leading financial groups,   end quote.   OpenBank   has set fees at 1.49%   per trade   with a minimum of €1   per trade.  

The bank will not charge custody fees, a detail that could appeal to retail investors wary of hidden costs.   In addition to the initial five tokens,   OpenBank will add more digital assets in the coming months. So falling right in line with the SEC's   new freaking guidance that allows every shitcoin under the sun to be sold to any idiot with money.   I feel bad for these people.   This launch is part of Santander's broader blockchain and digital asset strategy. OpenBank already serves   more than 2,000,000   clients across Spain, Germany, Portugal, The Netherlands, The US, and Mexico,   making it one of Europe's largest digital banks. And since Santander   has dabbled in digital assets and blockchain before, recently, it had been reported to be considering   entering the stablecoin market,   potentially   issuing   its own digital asset services.  

D z Bank, the country's second largest bank, launched a digital asset pilot with 700 cooperative banks in 2024.   Deutsche Bank announced earlier this year that it would roll out a custody service for digital assets in 2026   with fintechs, Bitpanda, and Taras.   Meanwhile,   Sparkassian   Finance   Group   Groupa.   Gruppe.   Finance Gruppe. A network of saving banks,   serving almost 50,000,000 Germans will introduce Bitcoin trading through its Sparkasi   app by mid twenty twenty six. And, yes, I don't really pronounce German that well, so forgive me for all my German listeners. Anyway, elsewhere in Europe, BBVA,   the global financial   group headquartered in Spain,   already offers digital asset services to clients in Switzerland and Turkey and will roll out retail Bitcoin trading in Spain   once it gets regulatory   approval. So everything is on track.  

If you're smart, if you're European and you listen to the show,   it's only Bitcoin. It's the only one that matters.   All the rest of this is complete trash, it's complete garbage, and it's designed to do one thing and one thing only.   Take your money and put it in somebody else's pocket.   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.