Topics for today:
- Dem's Leaked Policy on DeFI Brings Ire
- South Korea Wants to Seize Cold Wallets
- Unchained and Gannett Wealth Fund
- South Africa Opens BTC Payments to 650,000 Stores
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https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/roger-ver-aka-bitcoin-jesus-reaches-deal-in-u-s-tax-fraud-casehttps://x.com/DavidBennettNB/status/1976667206365966623
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/10/09/senate-democrats-leaked-crypto-position-would-strangle-defi-industry-insiders-say
https://atlas21.com/south-korea-cold-wallets-at-risk-of-seizure-for-unpaid-taxes/
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/first-bitcoin-wealth-platform-comes-from-merger
https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-africa-crypto-payments-scan-to-pay-moneybadger
https://decrypt.co/343751/coinbase-mastercard-multi-billion-dollar-deals-stablecoin-bvnk
https://www.theblock.co/post/374169/morgan-stanley-open-crypto-access-all-client-accounts-retirement-plans
https://bitcoinnews.com/press-release/lightning2049-bitcoin-layer-2/
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It is 08:40AM Pacific Standard Time. It is the tenth day of the tenth month of twenty twenty five, and this is episode eleven eighty seven of Bitcoin. And some moron has opened a $600,000,000 short on Bitcoin, and that's one of the reasons why we're seeing the price drop. There are other things going on. All the markets are bleeding out right now, and it's probably has something to do with the fact that, one, economic news is coming up over the next few days. In fact, on the fourteenth, Jerome Powell will stand up in front of his podium, and we will figure out what color tie he's wearing and what kind of suit he's wearing and determine from the inflection of his voice what the hell is gonna happen with the federal funds rate. And then there's I don't know. We've got probably Michigan consumer information coming out. There's a whole. It's the normal bullshit that you always see, and somebody has taken the initiative and pulled a $600,000,000 short on Bitcoin, $980,000,000 in shorts overall across the board from all the cryptocurrency stuff.
So if you're wondering what the hell is going on, that's one of them. The other one is Trump is threatening China with, tariffs, like, really big tariffs. All of this is sort of it's not a perfect storm, but it ain't exactly like something you wanna stand out in because the hailstones can kill your ass if you're not, you know, honestly, terribly careful with yourself. We're going to talk about that and more. We're gonna start with a native wealth platform that is emerging from a merger, Roger Ver. He's cut a deal. Yes. He has. He has cut a deal with the United States tax authorities and the justice department. We'll figure all that one out.
And then if you have been living under Iraq over the last twenty four hours, then you have not seen the tweet from treasury secretary Scott Bessent about Argentina. We're gonna get into that one because there's there's some serious nuance here. It's upsetting that they have made the decisions that they have made and bought something before they bought something else. But, again, there's nuance involved in there, and now we've also got news about elite position on cryptocurrencies from the senate democrats. It's yeah. Yeah. They still don't like cryptocurrency.
Well, South Korea, they also may have a problem with people having cold wallets. Oh oh my god. Or rather, they're targeting they may target cold wallets for quote unquote reasons. And let's see here. Oh, do do do do do oh, no. I'm sorry. We're not going to start with the native wealth platform first. We're gonna start with Roger Ver first. I'd I had that story about this native wealth platform emergence, twice in my list. I'm sorry about that. Now and then we're gonna go down to South Africa where, well, 650,000 stores can now pay in Bitcoin.
And then Coinbase and Mastercard are looking at BVNK, which is a nifty way of spelling bank because a is upside down and becomes a b or a v, and I'd have no idea how the hell to pronounce that. Morgan Stanley is in the news, and lightning twenty forty nine is in the news. But we're gonna start with Roger Ver, who's apparently cut a deal. From Bitcoin Magazine, Micah Zimmerman, we have Roger Ver, AKA Bitcoin Jesus, reaches deal in US tax fraud case. Roger Ver, who was once dubbed Bitcoin Jesus for his early evangelism on Bitcoin, has reached a tentative deal with the US justice department to resolve criminal tax fraud charges according to the New York Times. The agreement, still awaiting court approval, would require Roger Vuhr to pay roughly $48,000,000 in back taxes. In return, prosecutors would drop the case if he meets the terms of a deferred prosecution deal.
The case against Vuhr filed in 2024 accused him of evading taxes tied to his massive Bitcoin holdings before renouncing his US citizenship back in 2014. He was arrested in Spain last year as prosecutors sought extradition. If finalized, the deal would mark a sharp turn for one of crypto's most controversial pioneers and signal that Washington's tone toward digital assets is shifting once again. Vir's indictment claims that Vir gave false or misleading information to a law firm and an appraiser hiding the true number of Bitcoin owned by him and his companies. This allegedly led to the filing of false tax returns that significantly undervalued both the companies and their Bitcoin holdings.
By 2017, Vir's companies reportedly still held around 70,000 Bitcoin, which he sold on cryptocurrency exchanges for roughly $240,000,000 Although he was not a US citizen at the time, Vir was still legally required to report certain distributions to the IRS and pay taxes on them. The indictment says he failed to do so, resulting in an estimated $48,000,000 loss to the IRS. Oh, poor babies. Just go wet your diapers. The potential settlement comes as the Trump administration continues to unwind a years long federal crackdown on crypto, and Vers defense leaned into Trump's pro Bitcoin political currents.
He paid longtime Trump ally, Roger Stone, $600,000 and hired lawyers tied to the former president, including David Schoen and Christopher Keyes, as well as the lobbying firm of GOP fundraiser Brian Ballard, according to The New York Times. In January, Vuhr publicly appealed to Trump for help, claiming his case was politically motivated and warned he faced a potential one hundred year sentence. Neither the justice department nor Roger Ver has commented publicly about the matter. So I it appears that Roger Ver may be off the hook.
And, you know, we can we can still be mad at Roger Ver for causing the split between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, but honestly, that's been that is so much water under the bridge that we should probably just let's forget about it, man. It nobody needs to go to jail for this kind of crap. And it just really demonstrates that even after you divorce your citizenship from The United States, the long arm of that connection can still come back to haunt you. It's almost as if you can never get away. And it really demonstrates, are are we citizens or are we cattle? Are we forever tagged as property by the United States government or are we free people?
And I I don't think it's the former or I don't think it's the latter. I I I just it I don't know how you get away. And it's not just The US that does this, by the way. It's like most of the Western countries somehow or another are able to chain down their citizenry even after they say enough. I'm done with you guys. I want to go. So just, you know, be aware that just because you leave The United States and renounce your citizenship and sign all the papers and and dot all the i's and cross all the t's, it doesn't mean that you are actually free and clear. Okay.
Let's get to this Scott Bessant thing because this is really causing an uproar. And like I said at the beginning of the show, there's nuance. There's always nuance. And, no, I don't say that to protect Scott Bessent. I have I have some pretty sour feelings about this entire deal, but there are other currents coming in different directions. And without watching the wave pattern, well, we might end up someplace that we don't want to be. So I'm gonna start with Santiago Capital's tweet. And it simply says, Besant just bought an entire country for $20,000,000,000 in a currency that could be created out of thin air, and people somehow think this is a bad deal. And then he's got a little picture of he's got a well, he's got a a a I guess, a a little JPEG here that says The United States Of The Americas.
And it has Greenland, Iceland, Canada, The United States, all of Central America, all of the Caribbean and all of South America and the Falkland Islands, like, literally the entirety of the Western Hemisphere. What what is Santiago Cap capital talking about? Well, let's read the tweet from treasury secretary Scott Besant, which was made when, but yesterday at 11:45AM my time. So this is fresh. The US Treasury has concluded four days of intensive meetings with minister Luis Caputo AR and his team in DC. We discussed Argentina's strong economic fundamentals. We're talking about Argentina, by the way. Alright. So strong economic fundamentals, which they don't have, including structural changes already underway that will generate significant dollar denominated exports and foreign exchange reserves. Now keep the dollar denominated exports in mind.
Argentina faces a moment of acute illiquidity. The international community, including IMF News, that's the International Monetary Fund, is unified behind Argentina and its prudent fiscal strategy, but only The United States can act swiftly and act we will. To that end, today, we directly purchased Argentine pesos. Let's read that again. To that end, we directly purchased Argentine pesos. Yes. You, me, and the rest of your brothers and sisters in The United States Of America, all the taxpayers have decided to purchase a worthless fiat currency from a country that is not ours with money that we print out of thin air.
Yes, that's what's happened. Now, moving on. Additionally, we have finalized a $20,000,000,000 currency swap framework with Argentina's central bank. The US Treasury is prepared immediately to take whatever exceptional measures are warranted to provide stability to markets. I emphasized to minister Caputo that POTUS and real Donald or POTUS real Donald Trump, they're it's it's peppered with the actual, you know, Twitter handles here. POTUS, real Donald Trump's America First economic leadership, is committed to strengthening our allies who welcome fair trade and American investment.
I continue to hear from American business leaders who, thanks to President Malay's leadership, are eager to tie the American and Argentine economies more closely together. The Trump administration is resolute in our support for allies of The United States. And to that end, we also discussed Argentina's investment incentives, The United States' tools to powerfully support investment in our strategic partners. Minister Caputo informed me of his close coordination with the IMF on Argentina's commitments under its program. Argentina's policies, when anchored on financial discipline, are sound, its exchange rate band remains fit for purpose.
We reviewed the broad political consensus in Argentina for the second half of president Malay's term. It I was encouraged by their focus on achieving fiscally sound economic freedom for the people of Argentina via lower taxes, higher investment, private sector job creation, and partnering with allies. As Argentina lifts the deadweight of the state and stops spending into inflation, great things are possible. The success of Argentina's reform agenda is a systemic is of systemic importance, and a strong, stable Argentina, which helps anchor a prosperous Western Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere, is in the strategic interest of The United States, their success should be a bipartisan priority.
I look forward to the meeting between president Trump and president Malay on October 14 and to seeing minister Caputo again on the margins of the IMF annual meetings. So what what happened? Well, we struck a $20,000,000,000 deal with Argentina and The United States taxpayer with taxpayer funds. That's why I'm saying taxpayer. Directly purchased you the, Argentine pesos, which was intended there's only one intention here as far as directly purchasing the Argentine pesos. There's other intentions, but the direct purchase of Argentine pesos was to stop the collapse of the Argentinian peso. It's not working. The Argentinian peso after this announcement, we we there's been plenty of hours in the free and open markets to digest this news. And guess what? The Argentinian peso has only risen 3% against the US dollar, or at least that was the last I heard when I was setting up the show, and that was about, I don't know, 30 minutes ago. So it doesn't really appear to have all the effect that they want, but it it's still early. Okay? I I'll give them that.
But what else is here? Well, there's this $20,000,000,000 facility that is being set up between The United States and Argentinian Central Bank. And all this is at the backdrop of all of us, the Bitcoiners, saying, wait a minute. I'd well, if you said that you weren't gonna buy Bitcoin with taxpayer dollars, that you were gonna somehow or another remain fiscally neutral on the purchase of Bitcoin, why are you buying this trash economy? Why are you actually using our money? You could have you could have set up a $20,000,000,000 purchase plan for Bitcoin, but you didn't do it. And if you had, in five years, you could have just bought Argentina lock, stock, and barrel.
Ah, it may actually be that The United States is getting off cheaper doing it this way. Again, I'm not defending this. They should have just bought Bitcoin, let Argentina do it themselves, except, well, there's this whole notion of of China. Right? China. So Luke Gromen has an interesting take on this. Now he he responds to this guy named Warren b Mosler on Twitter who's directly replying to treasury secretary Scott Bessence. The the the tweet that I just read you, Warren is replying to that, and he says, US purchasing pesos? This is off balance sheet deficit spending to support an overhauled foreign currency.
Strange times. So Luke Groman comes back and he says, disagree. It is spending USD to buy wildly undervalued lithium, shale gas, and shale oil forwards in the ground in Argentina. And I have to respond to this, you know, because I'm I'm not, you know, a Nobel laureate in economics. Right? So I'm just I I simply ask Luke this question. I say, is this fact or is it your opinion? And what I'm what I'm saying is, do you know do you know, hardcore, do you have hardcore facts that The US actually did this to buy lithium, shale gas, and shale oil either rights or buy it outright or lease whatever to get to those. That's what I'm asking. Is this fact or your opinion?
If it is fact or it becomes fact, then this seems a rather circuitous route to go. They could have just said, yo, we buying your minerals, dude. So Luke actually responds to me and he's he and this is where I I kinda trip up and start saying, okay. Somebody is playing you know, this is, like, you know, macroeconomics and macro geopolitics on the global scale. And he says, not when China already took US dollars that we paid China for Walmart trinkets to buy up and control the next twenty years of supply of lithium, shale gas, and shale oil in Argentina. Then we'd have to go to China and ask them to sell us the commodities.
It seems clear that Luke I I think Luke is actually right. I think that that's what's really, really happening here. It's not just we're saving, you know, Argentina's bacon because their economy is collapsing. Okay? It's about the minerals. It always is about the minerals. It always will be about the minerals, and nothing here has changed. Last I'll say about this is Lynn Alden has weighed in on this. He she's actually, quote, tweeting Geiger Capital who says, Trump, quote, China made sinister move with rare earth controls. Trump, quote, many new countermeasures and tariffs under consideration.
And then Lynn comes back, and this is is her quote to tweet, and she says, dollar index is down on the news. And, indeed, the dollar US dollar index is down below 100 to 99.03. And, in fact, it's been below a 100 for a while. It's kinda it was kinda like it was tapping the 99.4 mark, but it started declining and then just rocketed down to 99.03. That is a half a percent drop on this particular news. So Trump's saying tariffs, us buying our the Argentine, essentially, basically saving their bacon. We're gonna probably get, like Luke saying, we're probably gonna get the mineral rights to a shit ton of lithium, a shit ton of shale gas, and a shit ton of shale oil, and all this under the backdrop that oil has now dropped, West Texas Intermediate has dropped below the $60 a barrel mark.
And like I said, everything is in the red. It ain't just Bitcoin that's having problems today. Everybody's trying to digest this mess that's going on in the world. And what is the answer? Well, nobody really knows. This is, as always, a we've gotta wait and see situation to figure out what the hell's going on. But let's move over to the senate Democrats. The senate Democrats leaked crypto position would strangle DeFi according to industry insiders Jesse Hamilton writing for CoinDesk says the crypto industry is recoiling from a document reportedly outlining a US Senate Democratic pitch on handling DeFi as a component to the wider effort toward regulating crypto in The US.
The proposal suggests that a firm or individuals that handle customers' needs on the front end of a DeFi operation should have to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and be regulated as a broker. The language defining who would be roped into regulation as an intermediary would seem to include, quote, everyone in crypto according to a take posted on social media site x from Jake Chernivsky, the chief legal officer at Variant, quote, many aspects of the proposal are fundamentally broken and unworkable. This is not a first offer in a negotiation.
It is a list of demands that appears designed to kill the bill, end quote. Summer Mersinger, who runs the Blockchain Association and was recently a commissioner at the CFTC, said the proposal, quote, would effectively ban decentralized finance, wallet development, and other applications in The United States. Quote, the language is written or rather, the language as written is impossible to comply with and would drive responsible development overseas. We urge our policymakers to stay at the table, end quote, Mersinger said. Before the senate's crypto market structure bill work fell into the shadow of the ongoing negotiation to reopen the federal government, senate Republicans and Democrats were circling each other over legislative language and seemed to be in range of making progress on a final combined bill. But the industry was bracing itself in August for expected pushback from Democratic senator Mark Warner, a key lawmaker on national security issues who has raised concerns about illicit finance in crypto.
This latest proposal seemingly seeks to allow the Treasury Department markets, regulator, and the Federal Reserve to squeeze bad actors by letting the government agencies identify those they can hold accountable for any DeFi activity described loosely as, quote, anyone designing, deploying, operating, or profiting from a decentralized finance front end, end quote. However, it holds that pure DeFi protocols that aren't making money can be defined as sufficiently decentralized to be outside of the regulatory perimeter. The proposal also seeks to free software developers from legal liability for their open source creations as long as they don't make money from running the technology.
This liability question has been among the core concerns of the DeFi space. Meanwhile, lawmakers in the House of Representatives, where a market structure already passed with a wide margin, have been calling for the Senate to just go ahead and use their Digital Assets Market Clarity Act as a template instead of starting over. However, senate legislation is more dependent on bipartisan support in order to clear the usual 60 vote requirement, While the crypto work has a long list of Democratic allies, they've made it clear that there are a number of changes they're seeking in the previous Republican legislative drafts before they can jump on board.
What does it all mean? It means two steps forward and one step back, except this is more like a step and a half. We're right back to where we started at before Trump got in office and the change of heart at the SEC, at the CFTC, at the Department of Justice, all the regulatory commissions just, you know, put a bow on them and wrap them all together, put them under the Christmas tree. This this very much sounds exactly like the Biden administration era when it came to cryptocurrency. This is the same kind of crap that we heard out of Gary Gensler. It's just going back to the same thing.
We're getting dangerously close to midterm elections. We're getting very dangerously close to midterm elections. And I was telling you yesterday that it's very clear that 64% of the voters in The United States consider digital assets and the position the lawmakers and whoever it is these voters are gonna vote for, that's that is top of mind for 64% of them. It is a it is a major issue for their voting decisions. And here we have a Democratic, you know, the Democratic side of the Senate fielding some language that is not helpful to those 64%.
So figure it out, man. It's not all that hard, but it makes me hungry. It makes me hungry to put some great ghee at greatghee.com. That's greatghee.com on my steak after I cook it. Man, there is nothing like having a big dollop of ghee. What is it? Well, it's clarified butter, And you make it by simmering butter to remove all the water, all the milk solids, and the rest of the impurities, leaving behind a golden lactose free oil with a nutty flavor and a high smoke point, which is around 485 degrees Fahrenheit. And unlike regular butter, ghee is shelf stable and versatile for cooking, baking, or even skin care. Shelf stable means you don't have to refrigerate it.
Ghee is a form of butter, you know, just like regular butter you buy at the store, and anybody can make this stuff, but it it's a pain in the butt. And I'd rather you just go over to great ghee, that's ghee,.com, greatghee.com, and buy it with code Bitcoin and because it's a pain in the butt to make. Plus, it takes a lot of butter to make, in fact. And you gotta baby it. You gotta sit by it. You can't just leave it on the stove because bad things happen. Ask me how I know. But what you essentially do is you take a whole bunch of butter and you melt it down and you kind of let it simmer and that heat coagulates all of the milk solids that are left inside all of the protein which is not fat and it falls to the bottom. And if you do it right, it kinda sticks to the pan so you can just pour it off. But you filter it through just a bay you know, if if if it's hot enough and you've got something like a bain marie not a bain marie, I can't remember. A chinois, it's a fine mesh sieve.
It all you're left with is just the animal fat, and that's what you're looking for. And it's like at at room temperature, it's solid, but there's nothing to spoil. It's all oil because all the water got boiled out is this is this is food of the gods. It's sunshine in glass. Go to greatg.com and get you some and make sure you tell great g by using coupon code Bitcoin and that I sent you because this is the circle p. It's where I bring plebs with goods and services just like you to plebs just like you who want to buy those goods and services. And it's the way that he, at Great Gi, could determine how much this sale would be worth for him. So if you're buying Great Gi and you tell him you heard about it on Bitcoin and Great Gi goes, oh, okay. Well, see here's much about how much you bought. I didn't have to pay for that advertising.
I'm gonna give mister Bennett this many satoshis and he pays me directly. It's value for value advertising. You will not find this advertising model in any podcast or YouTube channel anywhere in the world. This is primarily only found at Bitcoin. And let's get to South Korea where cold wallets are at risk of seizure for unpaid taxes. South Korea's national tax service oh, by the way, this is atlas20one,uh,.com. Yeah. Yeah. South Korea's National Tax Service has issued a warning to digital asset holders. Those who fail to settle their tax debts risk having their cold wallets seized directly from their homes.
I don't think they understand how this works. You'll they'll be able to get some because some people will keep their cold wallets at their homes. But if you do this right, there's no way anybody can just seize your shit. It's just impossible. But you gotta do it right. Anyway, South Korean tax authorities have long been running campaigns against tax evaders who hold cryptocurrencies on local exchanges. In recent weeks, several national agencies have expanded these operations to include citizens in default on utility bills, Oh, and traffic fines. However, the NTS's statement marks a clear escalation.
The agency confirmed that it is fully aware that many investors store their digital assets offline using self custody solution solutions. An NTS spokesperson stated, quote, we can now monitor. We can now monitor a non compliant taxpayer's crypto transaction history using blockchain protocols and tracking programs. And if we suspect they are hiding their coins offline, we can conduct searches at their homes, confiscating hard drives or PCs. So let's just just pause here to to make sure that we understand what's going on here. You're you've got a problem in in South Korea.
You haven't paid something. Somehow or another they they track that you've made a cryptocurrency payment, they can see your wallet, blah blah blah. They come knocking on your door, they walk in and they say, where's your cold wallet? And you say, I don't have one. And then boom. Next thing you know, all of your electronic gear is confiscated. You'll probably never get it back. They'll probably rip your house apart. But if you're smart and you just don't keep, you know, your cold card wallet at home or in a safety deposit box or something that the authorities can get to, let's say you've hidden it out in the forest, buried in a old, you know, Campbell's Soup can or something like that inside of a styrofoam cooler. Right? And they can just never find it. You're still going to lose your computer. You're still going to lose all your hard drives. It's still going to be a pain in the ass, and it's probably not going to be pretty even after that. But they won't have your hardware wallet.
I'm just saying this this this isn't just a a beautiful fix for everything. It it doesn't mean that all problems go away, but at least they won't get the one thing that's truly important, portable wealth. Continuing, despite the NTS's expanded powers, a gray area remains as highlighted by a newspaper that says, quote, problems occur in cases where noncompliant taxpayers use overseas crypto exchanges. Since domestic law does not apply overseas it's too bad you're not The United States. The NTS must rely on the cooperation of foreign governments to determine the nature of a delinquent taxpayer's assets, end quote. Although the Multilateral Tax Administration cooperation agreement allows Seoul to cooperate with 74 countries on tax matters, this network may not be sufficient.
South Korea does not have such agreements with The United States or China or Russia. There is also evidence suggesting that a growing number of South Korean traders are abandoning domestic platforms in favor of foreign or decentralized alternatives. Oh, my god. They're actually using the tools that we provided for them. Data from the financial supervisory service shows that in the first half of this year, 78,900,000,000,000, which is $55,600,000,000, nothing to sneeze at, worth of crypto assets were transferred from domestic exchanges to foreign companies or wallets.
So if you've got a cold card, you know, a hardware wallet, you're keeping your stuff like you should, off of exchanges and in, on a device well, actually, you're never storing your cryptocurrency on a device, but you've got a signing device of keys that you've set up and you're in full control of your Bitcoin. This is their this this is an issue for you in South Korea. And and at this point, here's see here's here's my real you know, another concern going forward is that, let's say you're in complete compliance as a South Korean citizen right now, and you do have a cold card, and you are you are storing your your stuff on on cold in cold storage, and you're in complete compliance. You've paid all your taxes. You've you've never run a red light. You've you're in complete compliance. One day, a new law happens, and all of a sudden, you find yourself in a way that you cannot rectify ever out of compliance with that law. All of a sudden, oh, well, now that you're you're a bad boy in the eyes of the South Korean government, we see that you have, yours you we we we believe that you have cold storage Bitcoin.
See where this goes? It's Insta rule. This is the way that governments work, and this is one of the reasons why I call it organized crime. Because we've we've shifted away from the the to say, what we would think of as the mission of a government. Basically, the coordination and protection of the citizenry of some country, some nation state. And now it's just a racketeering job with a private police force that has more guns than you do. It's just sad, but that's that's the way it's going. Let's run the numbers. CNBC futures and commodities in Russia is officially hurting very badly because all of energy is down, way down today.
This is beyond being kicked in the in in the crotch. This is being thrown out of a plane without a parachute. Brent Norsee is down almost 4% to sixty two sixty three. West Texas Intermediate is down four and a third percent to $58.81. We haven't seen that price in a long time. Natural gas is not going the other way. It is also in the red, 3.79% to the downside, coming in at $3.14 per thousand cubic feet. Gasoline is down 3.42% to $1.8 a gallon, and Murbund crude is down 4% to $64.00 8. Russia needs, like, they need prices that are higher than this to make money off of their oil fields because their their price of production is a little higher than a lot of other countries.
So the squeeze is on because where are they gonna get the money to continue to I don't know. I don't know why they keep messing around with Ukraine. You'd think that they would have just tac nuked that goddamn place at this point. I mean, I don't want that shit to happen, but you got a three year war with a small country versus one of the largest countries on the planet. And one would think that with all the military might that Russia would have, that they would just walk their happy ass right across to the other end of Ukraine, and they haven't done it. So I don't know if that means that they're showing restraint or what. Now a lot of people will say, well, their their economy is in the toilet, and they can't afford to do this. I'm not so sure. They've had a lot of military stockpiles over the years and it pretty much works so, you know, and their their population is rather large. I don't know.
But I do know that at the price of West Texas Intermediate at $58 a barrel or fifth let's let's call it $59 a barrel, that ain't enough for them to actually generate any capital. So they are now officially in the hurt locker. Just just saying. So it'll be interesting to see what happens with the Russia Ukraine situation moving forward if these prices remain stable. Like I said, all markets are bleeding to death. Even even some of the shiny metal rocks are not escaping. Platinum is down 1.8%. Copper is down 4.6%. However, palladium is up a third, and gold is up point six eight, but it is still just underneath $4,000 an ounce.
Silver is up point seven six, but it is below $48 an ounce. So there is some pullback even in everybody's favorite metal rock. Ag is red across the board except for lumber. Only thing in the green today, point 16% to the upside. Biggest loser is cocoa, 1.75% to the downside. Live cattle does not escape, point seven six in the red. Lean hogs, sent to slaughter half a point to the downside. Feeder cattle starving to death at 1.07% in the red. You think you're you're safe with equities? Come on, man. S and P futures is, down 1.5%.
The Nasdaq is down almost two full points. The Dow is down 1.17%. The S and P mini is down 1.86%. The only thing really in the green today is the interest rates on US treasury bonds. Wow. That's a lot of red. And Bitcoin does not escape the hurt locker either. $118,760 brings us to a $2,370,000,000,000 market cap, and we can only purchase 29.6 ounces of our favorite shiny metal rock with our one Bitcoin of which which there are 19,932,476.17 up. Average fees per block are normal, relatively 0.03 BTC. Taking in fees on a per block basis, there's about 35 blocks carrying 68,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear high priority rates of 3 Satoshis per vByte.
Low is gonna get you in at one. And speaking of one, we're back up to 1.01 zeta hashes per second on hash rate. Honestly, that's all the security the Bitcoin network really needs right now. Rev dot HODL from Drunken Bitcoin, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin ends with 321 SAT says, hash heating season is upon us. Come to the Southwest Michigan Bitcoin meetup this Thursday, October 16. I'll be doing a hash rate heating workshop showing how to build custom single board miners for use of space heaters, October 16 at Dwellers Co Working Space in Benton Harbor, Michigan, 06:30PM.
That's Thursday, October 16, Dwellers co working space in Benton Harbor, Michigan, 06:30PM. Thank you, rev dot huddl, for the news. Let's see. Who is this? Progressively worse with 3,000 sats. Thank you, bro. Here is your weekly dopamine hit. Thank you for the news that I can use. Yes. It's a nice hit, man. God's death with $2.37 says thank you, sir. No thank you. Axelrod z double aught with 900 sats says square sats. Wartime with a 133 says cheers. Psyduck with seven fifty one says Psyduck. And wartime with a 133 says nothing.
Let's see here. I think there's another one from wartime. A 133. I just used your code, and and I'm excited to try the conferee salve from Perma Nerd. There you go. There you go. Buying from the circle p. That's what I like to see. That's the weather report. Welcome to part two of the news that you can use First Bitcoin native wealth platform emerges from Unchained and Gannett Trust merger. Micah Zimmerman is writing this one for Bitcoin Magazine. Unchained announced today that its registered investment advisory affiliate, Sound Advisory, has merged with Gannett Trust Company to form a new entity, Gannett Wealth Advisors.
The merger marks the first time an SEC registered investment adviser has combined with a chartered Bitcoin trust company, creating what the firm calls a fully integrated wealth management platform for digital assets according to a note shared with Bitcoin Magazine. Gannett Wealth Advisors will operate as a subsidiary of Gannett Trust Company, a public trust company chartered in Wyoming, and will focus on uniting financial planning, custody, and inheritance services under one regulated umbrella. Back in May, Wyoming officially chartered Gannett Trust Company to help individuals, families, and businesses manage and pass on their Bitcoin wealth. The firm wants to prevent Bitcoin loss by offering secure compliant custody and inheritance solutions tailored to long term holders.
At its core, this merger represents a bridge between Bitcoin native finance and the highly regulated world of traditional wealth management. Unchained has provided Bitcoin custody and lending services before through its collaborative custody model. The integration of an SEC registered adviser brings fiduciary oversight and comprehensive planning capabilities to the table. Quote, for Unchained, working with Gannett Trust and Gannett Wealth Advisors is the next step towards proving how Bitcoin native wealth management can meet the same standards as traditional finance while staying true to the asset's unique nature, said Joe Kelly, CEO and cofounder of Unchained. The new platform will solve one of Bitcoin's enduring challenges, inheritance and estate planning.
Traditional wealth firms are typically not equipped to handle private keys or custody models that ensure assets can be securely passed down. Gannett says it will offer solutions that combine regulated trust structures with Bitcoin's self sovereign principles. Quote, bringing both advisory and trust services together gives individuals, families, and business owners something that they've never had, a fully integrated way to plan, manage, and secure their legacies under a fiduciary standard, said Joshua Preston, CEO of Gannett Trust.
The launch of Gannett Wealth Advisors, well, it arrives at a pivotal time, ladies and gentlemen, because over the next decade, an estimated $80,000,000,000,000 in global wealth is expected to change hands. And according to research cited by Unchained, nearly 4,000,000 Bitcoin may already be lost forever, much of it due to inadequate planning and lack of digital asset specific estate structure. At the same time, US policy has begun catching up to investor demand. In August, the federal government issued an executive order expanding four zero one ks options to include assets like cryptocurrency, real estate, as well as private equity.
Wyoming, where Gannett Trust is chartered, has become the nation's leading hub for digital asset trust companies thanks to forward thinking legislation that recognizes Bitcoin custody and fiduciary responsibilities under state law. The legal framework gives Gannett a foundation that many competitors in other jurisdictions combined firm will officially debut at Digital Wealth Frontiers, a summit hosted by Gannett Trust on October 15 at Bitcoin Park in Nashville and via livestream. The event will bring together family offices, advisors, and business leaders to discuss strategies for managing generational wealth with Bitcoin as a key component of diversified portfolios.
As Bitcoin becomes a more accepted part of mainstream finance, firms like Gannett Wealth Advisors want to serve clients who expect both security and compliance without compromising on Bitcoin's fundamental principles. It's about damn time, but it's more than just Bitcoin. The stories and the amount of them in the ranching and farming space completely let's completely divorce that space from the Bitcoin space, has had problems with legacy for decades. Ever since the seventies and Earl Butts and slightly before then, but not it really started in the early seventies along with the failures, the the monumental failure failures economically and agriculturally of the Nixon administration in '71. He took us off the gold standard. In '73, his secretary of ag told all the farmers to plow and plant commodity crops fence row to fence row. Right? So that really has really screwed things up for various reasons that I've discussed on this show before.
What to do with the land? What to do with the ranch? What to do with the equipment on the farm and the ranch? What to do with the buildings on the farm and the ranch? A lot of the children of farmers and ranchers do not want to farm and ranch. How do we do two things? Get them interested in doing it again, which means we need a different farming and ranching model. We need a different ag model, and I do not think it's going to come from government. I think I think it's going to I don't think the government's gonna change their tune anytime soon on things like subsidies and crop insurance and anything like that.
We've got to do stuff like regenerative farming, regenerative ranching, regenerative ag. That model is going to come from the producers, not the government. But still, the main problem remains. Even if the kids of ranchers and farmers want to take on the mantle of of taking over the whole thing. Right? How do they do that? How do you pass that money down? Because real estate is actually money. If I have, you know, thousand acres and it's worth a $100,000,000 and I die and my kids get it and they want to farm it, they're gonna have to sell about half of that of that land to get the to, you know, take care of the tax bill because I think it's below it's above $50,000,000 if you of inheritance is taxed at some ridiculous rate. So I'm just gonna ballpark it and say, yeah, I got a thousand acres. I die. My kids get it. They've got to sell 500 acres to keep the other 500 acres to take care of the tax bill.
This what the story that I've just read is basically centered in the state of Wyoming. It's a great ranching state. Not as much for farming, but for ranching, yeah, it's it's got a a storied history in the ranching space. So it's a good place to be around people who have a lot to say about how legacy is passed on, and this is a major problem. I've I've talked to I one day, there was at the first beef initiative in Kerrville, Texas. I talked directly to a ranching couple, and the wife had tears in her eyes when I started asking her about whether or not their children are going to take on the ranch. And that's all I needed to see to convince me just how bad this problem is.
So this Gannet trust thing along with Unchained, if they do it right, they can save a lot of people a lot of pain. Let's move to South Africa where South Africans can now pay with crypto at 650,000 stores via something called Scan2Pay. Ezra Raguera of Cointelegraph, South Africans can now pay with cryptocurrency at thousands of retail stores nationwide following a brand spanking new partnership between QR payments provider, Scan2Pay, and Bitcoin payments company, Money Badger. I love the name Money Badger. According to a Tech Central's report, the integration allows users of major exchanges including Binance, Luno, Blink, and Valor to pay using Bitcoin, stablecoins, and other crypto assets at over 650,000 Scan2Pay enabled merchants.
Crypto holders can pay for their purchases through QR codes at checkout counters while the merchant will receive their settlements in Rand, the currency of South Africa. The system works through Money Badger platform, linking payments to users exchanges or or to Bitcoin Lightning accounts. With the integration, users can pay for groceries, meals, and online shopping directly with crypto. Theo Coma, the product owner at Scan2Pay, said that the collaboration is a step forward or or towards financial inclusion, quote, by removing the conversion step. We're making it possible for people to use their cryptocurrency holdings directly, Koma said.
This means that crypto users don't need to convert their funds back into fiat when they want to use the assets for everyday purchases. Merchants also won't need to perform additional steps to accept crypto payments on Scan2Pay's existing network. Crypto platform Luna or LUNO said, the collaboration connects its 30,000 merchant base with Scan2Pay's 650,000 outlets expanding payments to major retail chains like ShopRite, Checkers, Marco, and Vodacom. Money Badger CEO, Carol Van Wyck, said the rollout reflects a bigger shift in the local market. Quote, South Africans are increasingly moving from holding Bitcoin as an investment to using it for everyday spending, he said.
This move expands the number of places where South Africans can pay with Bitcoin in significant amounts. Van Wyck previously urged the community to spend their Bitcoin arguing that hoarding Bitcoin kills adoption on October 2. He pointed to the Bitcoin white paper's original vision of being a peer to peer electronic cash system. He said market demand strengthens utility and creates demand for merchants to accept Bitcoin payments. So 650,000 physical retail outlets across 30,000 different vendors is nothing to sneeze at. And the statement that more South Africans are using their Bitcoin directly to purchase rather than just not only hold it, I I honestly think it's good. I mean, I think that there needs to be a healthy balance. You don't spend all your Bitcoin. That's just dumb.
But if you do hoard all your Bitcoin and never spend it, well and if more if enough people do that, then we've got a a different kind of problem. So I think it's just I think it really just boils down to a mix. And the only way we get that mix is through things like Square Bitcoin and this Money Badger and Scan2Pay merger, things like that, especially things that already are extant in the world as far as payment, you know, payment kiosks, little the little, you know, scan things where you can just drop your you you know, drop, like, a Bitcoin, credit card on there and it scans it or or, like, you know, got a little chip inside and it reads it and all that kind of stuff. If it's already there and all you gotta do is just add one more feature into the software proto or the the software that's running that, boom. Dude, you don't really have to do a whole lot. And all of a sudden, you enable all kinds of stuff.
But we're running out of time here. Coinbase and Mastercard buy a billion dollar deal for stablecoin firm, BVNK, according to a report, Vince De Aquino from Decrypt. Coinbase and Mastercard are reportedly in advanced talks to acquire BVNK, a UK based fintech firm building stablecoin infrastructure. If completed, the sale could value BVNK K between 1.5 and $2,500,000,000 according to an initial report from Fortune magazine citing six sources that are familiar with the matter. The talks remain ongoing and neither Coinbase nor Mastercard has reached a final agreement per fortune, though Coinbase reportedly has the inside track. So they are competing.
Mastercard and Coinbase are both competing with each other to purchase this thing. It is not a collaborative deal. At this scale, the prospects for BVMK outstrips Stripe's $1,100,000,000 acquisition of stablecoin startup, Bridge, first reported in October, which at the time was the largest in the crypto industry. The deal was completed in February. Quote, we don't comment on rumors or speculation, a Coinbase spokesperson said responding to Decrypt's inquiry for the inquiry on the matter. Founded four years ago, BVNK helps businesses integrate stablecoins into payments, cross border transfers, and treasury operations.
It raised $50,000,000 in December at a $750,000,000 valuation in a series b round. Industry observers say the latest wave of massive corporate interest in stablecoins reflects a broader shift in how payment networks and crypto firms look at digital money. Prospects of acquiring BVNK signal how major firms view stablecoins as critical payment infrastructure, though motivations divert sharply, Ryan Yoon, senior analyst at Tiger Research, told Decrypt. So there you go. Coinbase and Mastercard of all people are vying for the purchase of BVNK that builds stable coin infrastructure.
Yeah. We'll see how that goes. On to Morgan Stanley who is opening crypto access to all client accounts including all retirement plans and this is all according to CNBC. It's written by Kyle Baird from the block dot c o. Morgan Stanley will open access to crypto funds across all client accounts starting, wow, October 15. That's in five days, including retirement plans CNBC reported on Friday. Well, the move eliminates the wealth hurdle previously set for investors seeking digital asset exposure. Until now, only clients with at least 1,500,000.0 in assets and an aggressive risk profile could add Bitcoin or Shitcoin number one funds and only through taxable brokerage accounts.
Advisors will soon be able to recommend crypto vehicles from issuers like BlackRock and Fidelity to a far broader client base according to CNBC sources. Pausing to say, so so you let the whales get a bite first, and after they finish chewing up everything that they can chew up, then and only then do you let the pleb on the street have a taste. See, this is how it works. Just I'm just saying, man. I mean, it's it's not like I'm being conspiratorial here. I'm just telling the truth. Anyway, since winning US approval in 2024, Spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs have drawn a combined 77,000,000,000 in inflows according to the block ETF data, a market most Morgan Stanley clients were effectively shut out of until now.
The shift comes as Washington DC continues to loosen restrictions on alternative assets in retirement portfolios, and then they go on to talk about, how four zero one k's can now have access to this kind of stuff, which is gonna be important for Morgan Stanley because they have to, pretty much, they have to follow the rules when it comes to retirement. So, anyway, the rest of the little shrimpees now get to have a little taste of this entire market. Will retail come in? That's that's always the question. And when when you allow only the big dogs to have a taste at first and they eat their fill and then you throw it to the shrimp, you kinda sucked all the the wind out of the sails of a lot of stuff. Not permanently, you know, and and not for, you know, not not even in in the medium term. I mean, this everything could turn around and retail will be just fine.
I'm just saying that this is nothing new. This is the same playbook. I remember when, you know, back before Bitcoin, you know, generated even its first block, I was talking to, I will say, my broker, was really a wealth fund management guy. And I was asking about and somebody I can't remember who it was. Somebody was about to IPO. And it was it was it's a big company now. It's it was a tech company, and I can't I don't it may have been Google. I can't remember. It's been a while. But it it doesn't matter because there was no way I was getting into the IPO, which I was shocked. I was like I go, hey, man. This company is about to IPO. I want it I I want in and he's like, dude, not not unless you've got, you know, a million dollars. I'm like, what? And he goes, that's the way it works. Like, I I go, I don't understand. I was like, I mean, is it illegal for me to purchase? And he's like, no. You just can't do it. They're not they're just not gonna take the order.
He's like, I could put it in, but they're not gonna take it. And I which none of this I understand even to this day. And I'm probably getting the his verbiage wrong. But essentially, he was basically saying, I'm sorry, mister Bennett. There's no way that you're ever going to see one share of this IPO. It's just not gonna happen, and I wish I could tell you different news, but, no, I I can't. You're not getting any of this stock, and most people aren't. And that was my first taste to how this all this crap really works. But let's end on a high note. Lightning twenty forty nine highlights progress across Bitcoin layer two infrastructure.
This is from Bitcoin news. Lightning twenty forty nine organized by LNFi network and the RGB protocol association and sponsored by Bitfinex brought together developers, infrastructure teams, and investors for a focused discussion on the growing Bitcoin layer two ecosystem. The key topics were LN node which is yield generating lightning node for multi asset Bitcoin. There was RGB, Bitcoin's asset layer now running on mainnet. This is this is all just happened. This is basically news of what what came out of this whole thing. There was a whole talk on new use cases for lightning where Bob Bobby Shell, VP of marketing at Voltage, presented emerging use cases leveraging the Lightning Network.
Bitfinex, Lightning as a native yield layer, so there's a lot of yield stuff going on here. RGB based atomic swaps over lightning, which is more infrastructure based. El Salvador and lightning adoption and practice talked about, well, how lightning is being used in El Salvador. Stablecoins and Bitcoin layer two, let's see. Taproot assets, RGB, and ARC were presented as credible frameworks offering privacy, scalability, and final settlement. There was an investing in Bitcoin ecosystem panel. There was USDT on RGB. There was tokenization on multi asset on Bitcoin.
So this looks like it was a really fun place to be, and it was really only focused on lightning and and other layer two aspects, and we're we need that. We I mean, Bitcoin conferences, it kinda it's not that they're played out. It's just I I just find the ones that are mainstream. Just I I read through them. I'm like, oh, do I really want to pay this much money plus a flight, plus the food, plus all the hotel rooms, plus all the drinks and shit to go schmooze with 18,000 people in Nashville, Miami or or Las Vegas? And the answer is honestly no, not really. Not really. It's not that I don't want to schmooze with you guys. It's just that I I would rather be in something like, you know, one of the Europe like like Honey Badger conference. I would love to go to that. And the Human Rights Foundation's thing that they do, I wanna go to that one. I I wanna go to these things down in, like, Latin America, Central America, and stuff like that because, honestly, the the Bitcoin stuff in The United States, the the conferences, just just I don't know. The small ones are nice.
Like, bit block boom is is great. It's really intimate. Nobody seems to still know about it. They only just go to the the big Bitcoin conference in and it's just I don't want to hang out with 18,000 people. It sounds boring as hell. Anyway, we are about to take off, take my daughter to a birthday shopping trip up in Spokane. So I'm gonna go ahead and sign off. I hope you guys have a wonderful weekend. Don't let the idiots get you down. Let's see. What are we at? A $118,903. So let's see let's see what the what the curve on the downside looks like as it's shallowing out a bit.
It's not over yet. We'll probably see one seventeen five, something like that. And once all the dust is settled, we'll we'll count our dead, and we will wake up and realize that, dude, in 2017, we were excited about 18,900 or 19,200, depending on what price you were looking at. We're a $100,000 beyond that from 2017. I'm actually I'm actually kind of disappointed in myself that I woke up this morning going, oh, what the hell is going on with this idiot whale that wants to put shorts on Bitcoin? I'm actually kind of disappointed that I had that attitude. I'm gonna have a wonderful weekend despite of all these idiots doing whatever it is that they can to show their buffoonery to the world, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.
Market mayhem kickoff: mega Bitcoin shorts and macro jitters
Tariff threats, election vibes, and a grim market mood
Citizens or property? Reflections on tax reach and expatriation
Why not buy Bitcoin? Minerals, China, and Luke Gromen’s angle
Dollar dips, oil slides, and global risk-off continues
Running the numbers: energy, metals, ag, equities, and Bitcoin
Legacy and inheritance pain points in farming and ranching
Retail versus whales: access, IPO memories, and fair markets
Conference culture: small, focused events over mega shows
Perspective check: price cycles, resilience, and sign-off