Episode 1216 of Bitcoin And . . . is LIVE!
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https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/bitcoin-for-america-act-tax-free-bitcoin
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-asic-producer-bitmain-faces-us-probe-over-national-security-risks-bloomberg
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/strategys-mstr-responds-to-concerns
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/11/21/bitcoin-bounces-above-usd84k-as-fed-s-williams-puts-december-rate-cut-back-on-table
https://decrypt.co/349549/prediction-market-kalshis-valuation-jumps-to-11b-after-reported-1b-raise
https://www.theblock.co/post/379948/leverageshares-debut-first-3x-bitcoin-ether-etfs-europe-retail-crypto-selloff
https://atlas21.com/john-carvalho-bitcoin-doesnt-scale-we-need-to-scale-trust-not-complexity/
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Topics for today:
- Degenerate Gambling Everywhere
- Saylor "Clears Things Up"
- FED Gov Becomes Dovish
- Kalshi Overtakes Polymarket
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Today's Articles:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/bitcoin-for-america-act-tax-free-bitcoin
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-asic-producer-bitmain-faces-us-probe-over-national-security-risks-bloomberg
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/strategys-mstr-responds-to-concerns
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/11/21/bitcoin-bounces-above-usd84k-as-fed-s-williams-puts-december-rate-cut-back-on-table
https://decrypt.co/349549/prediction-market-kalshis-valuation-jumps-to-11b-after-reported-1b-raise
https://www.theblock.co/post/379948/leverageshares-debut-first-3x-bitcoin-ether-etfs-europe-retail-crypto-selloff
https://atlas21.com/john-carvalho-bitcoin-doesnt-scale-we-need-to-scale-trust-not-complexity/
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David Bennett:
It is 09:38AM Pacific Standard Time. It's the November 2025, and this is episode twelve sixteen of Bitcoin. And what do I got up on the tray for serving today? The Bitcoin for America act. This is gonna be kinda fun. I doubt anybody's actually gonna use it, but, you know, it'll be interesting if they did, then we're gonna run on over and look at some, an investigation by The United States into Bitmain. Something about it being a national security risk. It may be the firmware connected to, you know, the Internet. Who knows? But we're gonna we're gonna talk about it. We're also gonna talk about a statement that Michael Saylor made on x sometime early this morning, trying to dissuade fears that everybody has through this very clear downturn.
35% downturn in Bitcoin. Is this like what? The seventeenth 35% downturn in Bitcoin that we've had? So maybe twentieth? I don't there's been a lot of them. This is definitely not the first time in this rodeo. But then then we've got, we've got some some economic news that we're gonna run right before we run the numbers. Coming out on the other side, we've got prediction market Calshi's valuation changing. Yeah, it's gambling apparently is just everything to us now. We've got to gamble on everything to the point that Calshi is a prediction market.
Well, we'll we'll talk about it. And then three x bitcoin futures. It's like a prepackaged it's like a prepackaged gambling token. Yeah. You know, it's like it's not even bespoke. You can't even select your own leverage. It just comes out as three x leverage Bitcoin product. We'll run through the parameters of that one. And then John Carvallo got a brief interview with him from Atlas twenty one where he answers some questions about what what he's been up to. Maybe he'll update us on PubKey and some of the other things that he's been into. Because he does have interesting projects. You say what you want about John?
Good Bitcoiner, solid Bitcoiner, been here for years and years and years, and he does have some interesting projects. I, you know, I disagree with his stance on Nostr, clearly, because he doesn't like Nostr and he thinks it's I think he the energy that I get from John on Nostr is that he thinks it's stupid, silly, and a waste of time, and I think none of those things. I think Nostr is one of the most important infrastructure build outs on a free open source software scale in the history of humanity, trailing very close right behind Bitcoin.
So let's get back to the front and get into this one from Bitcoin Magazine, Micah Zimmerman writing, congressman Warren Davidson introduces Bitcoin for America act. It proposes federal tax free payments in Bitcoin. Okay. Well, Warren Davidson introduced today the Bitcoin for America Act in the House of Representatives, a landmark proposal designed to modernize The United States financial system and position the nation at the forefront of the global digital asset economy because that's always something a term that we use. We're gonna be at the forefront of x, y, and z. We're gonna be the leaders in x, y. It's just suit speak, but the bill would allow Americans to pay federal taxes.
Your federal income taxes, your business taxes, whatever, your federal taxes in Bitcoin. With all the proceeds deposited into the newly created strategic Bitcoin reserve, quote, by allowing taxpayers to pay federal taxes in Bitcoin and directing those funds into a strategic Bitcoin reserve, The nation gains a tangible asset that appreciates over time unlike the US dollar which is susceptible to inflation. This bill strengthens the nation's financial foundation and positions The US to lead. Lead, not follow in the global race towards sound money and digital innovation.
A race towards sound money. We'll say that again just for effect. A race towards sound money. We used to have sound money until you guys screwed it up. This is what so are are we racing backwards? Are we trying to travel back through time so that we can find what we've lost because we decided to destroy it? How is this a race towards something that we've already had and screwed up? I I think this is a terrible choice of words. In fact, he could have made that statement very much stronger in the face of Bitcoiners by recognizing we used to have sound money, but it has so been it been so effectively destroyed forever and ever and ever that now we have to actually go towards the future and revitalize, rescue the concept of sound money back from the clutches of idiocy and incompetence.
But that's just me and, you know, whatever. Under the proposed legislation, taxpayers would be able to transfer Bitcoin to the treasury or to approve financial agents designated by the secretary of the treasury. The transferred BTC would count as full satisfaction of tax liabilities with no capital gains recognized on the transaction. Fair market value at the time of transfer would then determine the amount credited, similar to how foreign currency payments are handled today. The bill also empowers the Treasury to establish robust custody measures for the strategic Bitcoin Reserve Provisions include cold storage, multi sig wallets, and geographically distributed storage facilities Bitcoin deposited into the reserve would be held for at least twenty years, according to the bill, with limited scheduled dispositions allowed only after that period, ensuring the assets are preserved for future generations.
The legislation is intended to bolster national financial resilience by diversifying US assets into a noninflationary, appreciating store value. The 21,000,000 coin supply of Bitcoin creates inherent scarcity, offering a hedge against long term currency devaluation. And Davidson and supporters argue in a conversation with the Bitcoin Policy Institute that this move reduces reliance on debt and strengthens The US balance sheet. Other major nations like China and Russia are already accumulating Bitcoin, Davidson contends. And by adding Bitcoin into federal finances, he believes The United States can maintain its competitive edge in the digital economy. Quote, other nations are actively acquiring Bitcoin to diversify reserves and protect against global financial instability.
The United States risks falling behind unless it takes a similar approach. And that language is a quote written directly into the bill itself. In his conversation with BPI, Davidson discussed the long term national benefits of the bill, noting that if The United States had been accumulating Bitcoin since 2012, it could help address the nation's 38,000,000,000,000, that's trillion with a t, amounts of debt. 38,000,000,000,000 in debt. That's reprehensible. Anyway, Davidson also stressed that the bill is opt in and democratic explaining, quote, every American, every American can basically make the choice at the end of the year to contribute to the reserve, end quote. On the broader vision for sound money, he argued, quote, money is increasingly designed as a surveillance system.
Bitcoin's premise is kind of a return to sound money, separating money from the state. Oh, that's not gonna make him any friends in Washington. The act also highlights Bitcoin's decentralized permissionless system as a tool to expand financial access By enabling payment of federal taxes in bitcoin, the government can provide more Americans, including unbanked or underserved populations, an opportunity to participate in the digital economy. For context, back in March, The US formally established a strategic Bitcoin reserve via executive order signed by Trump, making it the largest nation state BTC holder with an estimated 200,000 Bitcoin.
Funded entirely through government held assets seized in criminal and civil proceedings, the reserve cost taxpayers, well, nothing. The order mandates a full audit of federal BTC holdings, prohibits any sales from the reserve, and allows budget neutral acquisitions of additional BTC. And it's that last phrase, allows. Actually, it doesn't allow. The the strategic Bitcoin reserve requires the addition of Bitcoin, but only through budget neutral acquisitions. And what Davidson is saying and by the way, that's the end of the article. What Davidson is is proposing here in this bill is exactly that. It is a budget neutral acquisition of Bitcoin.
Here's the problem. The United States government burns through tax receipts. You know, when we pay our taxes in at various times of the year, they burn through that like it's I don't know. I don't even know how to describe it. It's like setting gas on fire. I yeah. John is it just it just like, we get it, and it's immediately gone. So what Davidson proposes is gonna be a big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big problem for all the spin thrifts in Washington, DC because they hate holding money. They've gotta give it to their friends. That is that is absolutely required of them at this point to make sure that they give all tax dollars to a whole bunch of idiots who don't really know what to do with money except, I don't know, whatever it is that they do. You get my point.
So how Davidson's gonna get this bill to fly is beyond my wildest imaginings. Because if even if if we were to just leave Bitcoin out of it entirely, what this bill is suggesting is that the United States government save money. I don't think that they're prepared to do that. Let's move on. Bitcoin ASIC producer, Bitmain, under US investigation over national security risk. Cointelegraph Adrian Zmunski is writing this one. The leading Bitcoin mining application specific integrated circuit manufacturer, Bitmain, based in China, is reportedly under investigation in The United States over national security concerns.
According to a Friday Bloomberg report, an unspecified US official and six other anonymous people who are familiar with the matter said that Bitmain's hardware is at the center. The hardware is at the center of a federal investigation known as Operation Red Sunset. Wow. Y'all need a better marketing team. The investigation, led by the US Department of Homeland Security, Those dipshits. Reportedly seek to determine whether the ASICs could be remotely controlled for spying or to sabotage The US power grid. Again, that is not how this works. That, goddamn it, that's not how this works.
I just okay. I I gotta calm down. US authorities previously investigated Bitmain linked Chinese chip designer, Xiamen Esofago, wow, over an alleged business relationship with US sanctioned company, Huawei, in October 2024. And then it was followed by the US Customs and Border Protection Agency halting the delivery of thousands of Bitmain ASICs the following month. Authorities only began releasing the hardware in March. Consequences for The US crypto mining industry could be far reaching since Bitmain controls over 80 of Bitcoin mining ASIC markets according to a Cambridge report that is.
Chinese dominance in the industry is even more ironclad with both Bitmain and the second largest manufacturer, MicroBT, based in Mainland China controlling 97% of the market share on their own. Holy smokes. That's not good. In some cases, investigators even disassembled Bitmain ASICs, oh, to look. They actually looked for malicious capabilities, the anonymous officials told Bloomberg. They declined to say if anything was actually found, though. A Bitmain spokesperson told Bloomberg that it is unequivocally false that the company is capable of remotely controlling its machines.
Okay? That's a bold faced lie right there. I I'm not on anybody's side here. Okay? Bitmain actually could remote control their machines at least in one aspect. Back in 2017, when the block size wars were on fire, we discovered something called ASIC boost. And it turns out that Bitmain had a stealth software package, well, software is a bad word, a stealth code package that was in their firmware, and they could flip a switch and they could control that firmware, but it basically had some it it had only to do with hash rate or or how the hashing was actually going to take place inside the machine. It couldn't do anything else. It couldn't it couldn't reach out to the transformer of the machine and say, hey, screw up the entire US power grid with your, you know, two hundred and and forty volt transformer here inside this box. It's just ridiculous.
Anyway, anyway, the company representative claimed that it strictly complies with US and all applicable laws and regulations and has never engaged in activities that pose a risk to US national security and is, of course, unaware of the investigation. I guess you're aware of it now. Imposing restrictive measures on Bitmain machines is also likely to lead to consequences for Trump's family. In August, a Bitcoin mining company backed by members of Trump's family, American Bitcoin, acquired a fleet of 1,600 16,000 sorry. 16,300 amp miner, units from Bitmain, and the company also inherited substantially all of Hut eight's ASICs, and that includes the 31,145 Antminer s 21 plus machines that it acquired about a year ago.
In September, American Bitcoin announced that it has preferential access to next generation ASIC compute infrastructure without explicitly citing Bitmain. US Securities and Exchange Commission filings also revealed that American Bitcoin paid through the pledge of Bitcoin with a redemption period of twenty four months from each pledge date, terms which the Guardian reports are unusually generous. With Bitmain so dominant in the space, American Bitcoin is far from the only US based crypto mining company that may be affected by the findings of this investigation. The industry already got a taste of what might happen when in mid February, publicly traded mining companies in The US felt the effects of trade tensions between The United States and China through delays in receiving shipments of their ASICs. Yes. We know all that.
No. I no. I I can't look. The who makes all the servers that that sit in Amazon's warehouses that, handle all the back end for for Amazon Web Services, AWS? What I mean, are they fundamentally different machines? I mean, are they fundamentally made by different manufacturers? Do do you really think that all the servers being purchased by Amazon are made in The United States? No. They're not. Alright. They may not be made by Bitmain, but, China. I'm sorry. It's just we don't make machines anymore. Not really. I mean, Dell might still dabble in it a little bit, but I can pretty much feel confident in saying that most of the machines that we purchase for compute infrastructure, whether for high performance computer, AI, or just server stuff at universities and AWS and, I don't know, Costco, whatever. I is probably made not in The United States, and the chips certainly aren't. That hasn't been true for years. So what's different about Bitmain?
Why is it because it's ASICs do The last I heard, ASICs can't do a damn thing but perform the SHA two fifty six algorithm, so I'm pretty sure it's not not in the ASICs side of the equation that they're worried about. So is it the firmware in the controlling aspect of the ASIC that's somehow different and inherently malicious? You know, it's different. Oh, it's different than all the computers at Amazon warehouses. See, this is all bullshit, and I don't know why they're even going after it. But, you know, they're gonna do what they're gonna do. They sure as shit ain't gonna listen to me. And neither is Michael Saylor because he's already dismissing everything.
Right? So here we go. Michael Zimmerman writing this one for Bitcoin Mag. Strategies, Michael Saylor dismisses index concerns, quote, our conviction in Bitcoin is unwavering. Well, that's good to know, Mike. Saylor pushed back on recent reports warning that strategy could face billions in passive outflows if MSCI excludes the companies from major equity indices. In a statement on x, Saylor said the strategy is, quote, not a fund, not a trust, not a holding company, end quote. He described the firm as a publicly traded operating company with a $500,000,000 software business and a unique treasury treasury strategy that uses Bitcoin as productive capital.
Saylor highlighted the company's recent activity including five, count them, five public offerings of digital credit securities, STRK, STRF, STRD, STRC, and STRE, representing $7,700,000,000 in notional value. He also pointed to Stretch, the STRC side of it, a Bitcoin back credit instrument that offers variable monthly USD yields to institutional and retail investors, quote, funds and trusts passively hold assets. Holding companies simply sit on investments. We create structure, issue, and operate, Saylor wrote, quote, no passive vehicle or holding company could do what we're doing, end quote.
He describes strategy as a new kind of enterprise, a Bitcoin backed structured finance company innovating in both capital markets and software. Saylor added that index classification does not define the company. Quote, our strategy is long term. Our conviction is bit in Bitcoin is unwavering. And our mission remains unchanged to build the world's first digital monetary institution on a foundation of sound money and financial innovation. End quote. The statement comes as JPMorgan analyst warned that MSCI's potential exclusion of strategy from all major indices could trigger $2,800,000,000 in outflows rising to 8,800,000,000.0 if other index providers follow.
Strategy's market cap sits around 59,000,000,000 with nearly 9,000,000,000 held in passive index tracking vehicles. Analysts said any exclusion could increase selling pressure, widen funding spreads, and reduce trading liquidity. Strategies inclusion in indices such as the Nasdaq one hundred, MSCI USA, and MSCI World has long helped channel the Bitcoin trade into mainstream portfolios. However, MSCI is reportedly evaluating whether companies with large digital asset holdings should remain in traditional equity benchmarks. Market participants increasingly see digital asset heavy companies as closer to investment funds, which are ineligible for indexing in in yeah.
Ineligible for index inclusion. That's a lot of n's. Anyway, despite all the recent Bitcoin volatility and concerns about potential outflows, the company continues to pursue its long term vision of a Bitcoin backed financial enterprise aiming to create brand spanking new financial products and a digitally native monetary institution. On October 10, Bitcoin and the broader crypto market crashed. Some believe it was because Trump threatened tariffs on China, but some contend that the broader crash was triggered when MSCI announced it was reviewing whether companies that hold crypto as a core business like strategy should be classified as funds rather than operating companies.
And some contend that Smart Money anticipated this risk immediately after MSCI's announcement, leading to the sharp market drop with the outcome now hinging on MSCI's 01/15/2026 decision. So January 15 is is a red letter date as to what their decision's gonna be. But before we finish this off, I wanna make a statement here. Micah in this in writing this piece is is sort of throwing it out to us that it was either the China tariff threats on October 10 or or the whole thing with MSCI announcing that it was reviewing whether companies, that hold crypto's core businesses should be cert classified as funds rather than operating companies, which changes the entire landscape of what's going on.
How is it not both? They both happened roughly around the exact same time. They both I mean, honestly, they're they're both negative energies. So when you add them together, they're gonna be even more negative. So how is it one or the other? It's not. It's both. Right? We have cascading pieces of bad news that keep coming out. The the world's economy, we're we keep looking at Bitcoin like it's, oh, look what's happened to Bitcoin. It's not that. Bitcoin is just is it's like holding up a a giant globe that is a mirror, like a like, literally a sphere that is a perfect sphere and a perfect mirror, and it mirrors everything that that is around it, including the happenings of the global economy.
I don't think it's fair to blame Bitcoin for the fact that Bitcoin's price went down. We've got to look at what Bitcoin is reflecting back to us, and and we do that by recognizing that its price has dropped by 35%. Okay. What the hell is going on in the world? Stop looking at the price of Bitcoin. What the hell is going on in the world? It's everything is on fire. It's look at people like Peter Schiff are like, look, man, Bitcoin sucks. It's like, do you have any capacity to look beyond anything and say, well, why is it doing this? And and people who is like, yeah, people are just tired of Bitcoin.
Nope. Nope. That's not it. The world's economy is burning to the ground as we speak. Nothing nothing can be done to stop it. It's an inevitability. We've bucked the money so thoroughly and so soundly that there's no there's no rescuing anything from the current situation or the past. We have to go with Bitcoin. Continuing on, earlier this year in an interview with Bitcoin magazine, Saylor outlined an ambitious vision to build a trillion dollar Bitcoin balance sheet. He wants to accumulate $1,000,000,000,000 in Bitcoin and growing at 20 to 30% annually. From this base, Saylor plans to issue Bitcoin back credit at yields significantly higher than traditional fiat systems.
He anticipates this could revitalize credit markets, equity indices, and corporate balance sheets while creating new financial products, including higher yield savings accounts, money market funds, and even insurance services denominated in Bitcoin. So even though strategy stock is not doing good, like it's down a 100, like, wow, a $167.95 a share, wow, that's that is but then if you actually go look at the chart of of strategy and you look at it from, like, a long, long time scale, it was trading at $13 a share, $10 a share, $11 a share years ago. Would you like $10 a share?
Or would you rather own it at a $167.95 a share, especially if you bought it at $10 a share? This is not that hard of a decision to make. I I'm just saying, I I I think I think people put too much trust in Sailor, but I also think that they put too much blame on Sailor. Sailor's just Sailor. He's just a dude. He's got three yachts. My question about sailor is, why do you need more than one yacht? The only thing I can figure out is that he's a sailing buff, so therefore, he's he's really into being on the water, I guess, and he needs more than one boat to do it. But it's a good place to get squeaky clean in the water, and you can do that with SoapMiner at soapminer.com.
Handmade tallow soaps from SoapMiner at soapminer.com. That's soapminer.com. He's got all kinds of handmade tallow, 100% grass fed beef tallow soap, cedarwood. Oh, he's offering a quintessential bundle. He's got, a bundle of four soaps for $28. Of course, you can buy it all in Bitcoin. Pine tar, lavender, cedarwood, and lemongrass in a bundle. Nice. So he's got goat's milk tallow. He's got orange clove tallow. He's got, tea tree tallow. He's got peppermint tallow. He's got earl gray tallow, which is one of my favorites. And my other favorite is redacted. Get your soap from soapminer.com.
It's the best soap in the business, and he's a true Bitcoiner. Otherwise, he wouldn't be in the circle p where I bring plebs with goods and services just like you to plebs just like you who wanna buy those goods and services, but you're gonna be buying into Bitcoin because if you ain't selling it in Bitcoin, you ain't in the circle p. Use the code Bitcoin and to get 10% off of your entire purchase at soap miner dot com. Bitcoin and, use the term Bitcoin and, Bitcoin and at soapminer.com, get 10% off. And it also lets Soap Miner know that I made the sale for him here on the Bitcoin and show, and then he can get me back on the other side with however many Satoshis he thinks the sale was worth. Okay.
Right before we run all of the numbers, let's get into this one from CoinDesk. Bitcoin bounces above 48 48. 84,000 as Fed's Williams puts December rate cut back on the table. Christian Sandor, like I said, from CoinDesk. Bitcoin staged a modest rebound in the morning, US hours Friday after a 10% sell off overnight as the likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate cut in December jumped sharply following dovish remarks from New York Fed president John Williams. Quote, I see I still see room for a further adjustment in the near term to the target range for the federal funds rate to move the stance of policy closer to the range of neutral. Wow. That is an interesting sentence.
Quote, looking ahead, it is imperative to restore inflation to our 2% longer run goal on a sustained basis. It is equally important to do so without creating undue risks to our maximum employment goal, end quote. William's comment stands in stark contrast to those of leading Fed hawk, Cleveland Fed president, Beth Hammack, who yesterday more or less brushed off any labor market worry, instead choosing to focus on inflation and what she believes is a bubbly stock market. Oh, it's bubbly. Remember, if it's not from the, Champagne region in France, it's just a bubbly stock market. Williams commented he had immediate effect upon hitting the tape, sending the price of Bitcoin from about a hun oh, 81,000 to back above 84,000.
It was trading at $83.05 at press time. Still down 9.5% over the past twenty four hours. Odds, the odds for a 25 or 25 basis point rate cut at the Fed's December meeting spiked to 70% up sharply from just 39% a day ago according to CME FedWatch tool. Okay. So at least one Fed governor is talking dovish. But choosing some language that I find rather odd, let's just leave it at that and we'll run the numbers. CNBC. Energy getting kicked in the crotch today again. Brent Norsey down another 1.6% to $62.33. West Texas Intermediate down 2% to $57.82. But but here comes our savior, the hedge for energy that is natural gas. It is up 3.15%.
It's so transparent. It's sickening. $4.61 per thousand cubic feet. Gasoline down 2 and a quarter to a buck 87. Murbaugh crude down 1 and a half to $63.84. Metals are pretty much in the green today. Palladium is moving sideways. Gold is up point 6% to $4,085. Platinum is up point 4%. Silver is down a half. Copper is up almost a full point. Most of ag is in the green today. Biggest winner is rough rice, 2.6% to the upside. Chocolate getting squashed 2.12% to the downside. Live cattle getting a bit of a reprieve, 0.15.
Nope. Just flipped over. A a quarter point to the upside for live cattle. Lean hogs down two and a quarter percent, so more McRibs on the way. Feeder cattle down point 16%. And it looks like there's a rally in equity indices here. S and P is up 1.14%. Nasdaq is up point eight. The Dow is up almost one and a half points, and the S and P Mini, Oh, man. Two and a half percent in the green side. Yay. But Bitcoin's at $83,760, a mere $1,670,000,000,000 market cap. We can only purchase 20.6 ounces of our favorite shiny metal rock with our one Bitcoin, of which there are 19,951,609 oh, 629.29 of, and average fees per block are normal to 0.03.
BTC taking the fees on a per block basis. It's about 27 blocks carrying 39,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear. High priorities get you in at three. Low priorities at 1 satoshi per vbyte. Hash rate, still in Zetahash territory. 1.06. Yesterday, it was zero five. 1.06 Zetahashes per second is all the speed you need on Bitcoin. From Bitcoin Core on the Brink, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin Ant, I got God's death giving me 237 sats says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. 1,000 sats from Third Coast Hoddle says thank you for the help on primal. I am still learning about nostrils, so I just went with the tip here since I am familiar. You are more than welcome, sir. Nick Dos +1 07 says cheers. Well, cheers back to you, pal.
Richard Dick Whitman with 200 says, free samurai. I hear that, brother. Pies with +1 21 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that's the weather report. Welcome to part two of the news that you can use prediction market. Cal, she's valuation jumps to $11,000,000,000 after a reported $1,000,000,000 raise, Vince De Aquino, from Decrypt dot CEO. US prediction market platform, Calshi, reportedly pushed its valuation to roughly $11,000,000,000 after raising 1,000,000,000 in a yet undisclosed funding round according to an initial report from TechCrunch citing a source with knowledge of the deal.
The rise in valuation marks one of the fastest step ups in the prediction market sector this year. The company closed around weeks after securing 300,000,000 at a $5,000,000,000 valuation in October. Trading activity, market depth, and user adoption continued to climb into this year's final quarter. Kalshi's annualized trading volume reached about $50,000,000,000 last month according to a report from crypto analytics platform, CryptoRank. The figure marks a dramatic jump from roughly 300,000,000 just one year ago. So from $300,000,000 to $50,000,000,000 in volume in a year.
That's impressive. It's sad because that's how much degenerate gambling we have going on, but I gotta say, man, that's impressive. Anyway, it has also outpaced Polymarket, its main rival in the space. Just last month, it generated approximately $4,400,000,000 in trading volume, surpassing Polymarket's 4,100,000,000.0 during the same month. About a third of bets on Kalshi are for sports related markets according to a Dune dashboard. Weekly notional volume among prediction markets have also been on a steady rise since September according to a broader dashboard from the same maintainer. Sequoia Capital and Capital g reportedly led the deal joined by, of course, Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a sixteen z.
Paradigm, Anthos Capital, Neo, and other returning backers. Cauchy's raise just shows the ceiling is only getting higher for prediction markets, and we haven't seen nothing yet. Yeah. You haven't seen the depths of human degeneracy is another way to phrase that one. But this was spoken by Farrokh Sarmad, cofounder and president of rival prediction market platform, Myriad, in his discussion with Decrypt. I'm just I'm still, like, still reveling in just how degenerate we've become. Kalshi declined to comment for this article. Decrypt has reached out, blah blah blah blah blah. I haven't heard shit yet. Prediction markets have long faced legal friction in The United States given how such platforms sit between regulated derivatives and prohibitive gambling or prohibited gambling, creating a jurisdictional tension that has so far so far shaped the industry's growth. Let me pause.
It sits between regulated derivatives and prohibited gambling. Derivatives is gambling, but it's allowed. Let's be clear about what a derivative is. It is not a price discovery mechanism. People will say that I'm wrong, and I'll get, like, you know, if I was in saying that in the presence of a Nobel laureate economist, I'd be, of course, hogtied and and and laid out, you know, on on train tracks like a damsel in distress, and and, you know, the guy's twisted his mustache. But I'm right, and this person is wrong. Derivatives are gambling.
Most of the economy is based upon degenerate gambling behavior. Derivatives, supradervatives, x three derivatives, leverage, Leverage longs, leverage shorts, futures. We need them for price discovery. No. No, we actually don't. You know what we need for price discovery? I got 10 people in a room. How much do you want to pay for this barrel of oil? How much is it worth to you? Let the bidding begin. Auctions. That's how you get price discovery. And it just so happens, the free market is the largest auction house in the world where everybody's bidding on everything else in real time. That's your price discovery.
Derivatives, futures, leverages, it's all bullshit. It's just gambling. It's just legalized gambling. Please understand that. When somebody tells you how important derivatives are to the market, just either stop listening to them or if you so choose, look them square in the face and say, I'm sorry. You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. You are a degenerate gambler and you might actually have better luck going to Ruidosa Downs in New Mexico and laying bets on the ponies. Regardless, Kalshi won a high profile lawsuit last year against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, securing the right to offer election markets to The US users.
The ruling accelerated domestic growth, but opened new fronts with state regulators who view certain types of contracts as gambling products rather than, of course, federally governed derivatives, which as we just went through are is gambling. In May, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission moved to drop its appeal against Kalshi's victory in a case allowing the company to offer US contracts on election outcomes still. The company has concurrent disputes with several state regulators who argue its contracts still fall under gambling statutes rather than commodities law.
Let's bet on the price of onions, showing. Months later, its rival, Polymarket, received approval from the same regulator to operate in The US years, years after it was fined and pushed offshore over allegations that it failed to comply with the regulators' federal policies. I guess federal policies on what? Degenerate gambling? I don't know. But it is odd that Calshi has completely overtaken Polymarket. An interesting dynamic to watch as we move forward. Another kind of gambling altogether from Kyle Baird, writing from The Block, leveraged shares, which is the name of a company, leveraged shares to debut first three x Bitcoin and shitcoin number one ETFs in Europe amid retail led crypto sell off.
Is it the right time to introduce this kind of product? Let's find out. Leverage shares is set to launch the very first three x and or three x Bitcoin and Shitcoin number one ETFs in Europe next week. The firm's four new ETPs, three x long and three x short products for both Bitcoin and Shitcoin number one will list on Switzerland's SIX exchange expanding a leveraged roster that already includes vehicles tied to semiconductors, AI, blue chip baskets, and single stock names. A leveraged ETF uses derivatives and debt to amplify the daily returns of the underlying security. Oh my god.
It it's like it's like plumbing the depths of the most degenerate colon of humanity that you will ever find. Even gerbils cannot stand being this far down this asshole. This is ridiculous. Using derivatives and debt to amplify the daily returns of an underlying security hogwash. It's all hogwash. I'm adjusting my monocle and tipping my top hat here, and I'm gonna twirl my mustache. Balchunas noted, this is Eric Balchunas, by the way, the timing is either really good or really bad depending on your point of view given the current market backdrop. That backdrop includes a sharp pullback in crypto ETF demand.
Retail investors have withdrawn $4,000,000,000 from spot Bitcoin and Shitcoin number one ETFs so far in November, already exceeding February's record outflows according to JPMorgan. The bank's analyst said Bitcoin's dropped below their estimated production cost support level of 94,000 has accelerated selling from non crypto native retail holders of spot ETFs even as perpetual futures deleveraging has stabilized since October. Meanwhile, retail investors have added roughly 96,000,000,000 to equity ETFs this month, including leveraged stock products even as traditional markets edge lower.
Everything's getting hammered, dude. The Vanguard S and P five hundred ETF, the world's largest ETF with more than $700,000,000,000 in assets, slipped below $600 for the first time in over two months, about 5% off its late October peak. Crypto markets have been hit far harder. Bitcoin is down 35% from early October's all time high above 126,000, while Shitcoin number one, who cares? I don't care. Well, actually, it's fallen more than 43% over the same stretch, but, honestly, all I care about is the ether b the BTC ether chart. I I don't even look at ether versus the USD. It's it's it's ridiculous.
Anyway, three x longs and shorts already prepackaged, which I find odd. Right? I mean, remember BitMex? Yeah. I could just I mean, I never did. I I I never actually got on BitMex to to go trade, but I could if or I could have, had I wanted to, selected my amount of leverage that I'm going to use when I'm degenerate gambling. It's very, very sad to watch humanity do this. That we got literally no grander goal in mind for something with the hardware that we've been given up in our skulls. Each one of us, 8,000,000,000 supercomputers walking around this planet, and we come up with McDonald's and derivative gambling and then regular gambling most of which is illegal.
That's that's that's the pinnacle right now. We used to have it. We used to have moonshots space programs. We used to build cathedrals. We used to build whole towns that still stand to this day that people absolutely adore. The people that live there just take care of it and and and nothing's changed since Roman times. Yet you can't build a brand new McDonald's and have it last any longer than twenty years before it needs to be bulldozed and rebuilt again because that's the way it was actually built. It was built to degrade. It was built so that when they change their marketing plans in the future, they already have a plan to dispose of any of the old marketing culture that they might have, you know, driven into into the psyche of their of the people that are their customers.
As built to be destroyed. Cars are built to fall apart. Toasters are built to break. Vacuum cleaners are built to self destruct. And we have supercomputers, 8,000,000,000 of them walking around the planet, and this is what we come up with. Well done, sir. Well done. Alright. I am I was going to read this one from John Carballo, but it is Friday before the weekend of the week of Thanksgiving. So what I'm gonna do is I've got all kinds of stuff that I gotta go do. And I'm gonna go do that instead of maybe I'll revisit John Carvallo. I do plan on cutting episodes of Bitcoin and during the week of Thanksgiving. I'm not gonna leave you guys out in the wind to twist. Alright?
Thanksgiving Day, that one's for me, but tune in. I will be dropping episodes through the week of Thanksgiving, and I will see you then on the other side. This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
It is 09:38AM Pacific Standard Time. It's the November 2025, and this is episode twelve sixteen of Bitcoin. And what do I got up on the tray for serving today? The Bitcoin for America act. This is gonna be kinda fun. I doubt anybody's actually gonna use it, but, you know, it'll be interesting if they did, then we're gonna run on over and look at some, an investigation by The United States into Bitmain. Something about it being a national security risk. It may be the firmware connected to, you know, the Internet. Who knows? But we're gonna we're gonna talk about it. We're also gonna talk about a statement that Michael Saylor made on x sometime early this morning, trying to dissuade fears that everybody has through this very clear downturn.
35% downturn in Bitcoin. Is this like what? The seventeenth 35% downturn in Bitcoin that we've had? So maybe twentieth? I don't there's been a lot of them. This is definitely not the first time in this rodeo. But then then we've got, we've got some some economic news that we're gonna run right before we run the numbers. Coming out on the other side, we've got prediction market Calshi's valuation changing. Yeah, it's gambling apparently is just everything to us now. We've got to gamble on everything to the point that Calshi is a prediction market.
Well, we'll we'll talk about it. And then three x bitcoin futures. It's like a prepackaged it's like a prepackaged gambling token. Yeah. You know, it's like it's not even bespoke. You can't even select your own leverage. It just comes out as three x leverage Bitcoin product. We'll run through the parameters of that one. And then John Carvallo got a brief interview with him from Atlas twenty one where he answers some questions about what what he's been up to. Maybe he'll update us on PubKey and some of the other things that he's been into. Because he does have interesting projects. You say what you want about John?
Good Bitcoiner, solid Bitcoiner, been here for years and years and years, and he does have some interesting projects. I, you know, I disagree with his stance on Nostr, clearly, because he doesn't like Nostr and he thinks it's I think he the energy that I get from John on Nostr is that he thinks it's stupid, silly, and a waste of time, and I think none of those things. I think Nostr is one of the most important infrastructure build outs on a free open source software scale in the history of humanity, trailing very close right behind Bitcoin.
So let's get back to the front and get into this one from Bitcoin Magazine, Micah Zimmerman writing, congressman Warren Davidson introduces Bitcoin for America act. It proposes federal tax free payments in Bitcoin. Okay. Well, Warren Davidson introduced today the Bitcoin for America Act in the House of Representatives, a landmark proposal designed to modernize The United States financial system and position the nation at the forefront of the global digital asset economy because that's always something a term that we use. We're gonna be at the forefront of x, y, and z. We're gonna be the leaders in x, y. It's just suit speak, but the bill would allow Americans to pay federal taxes.
Your federal income taxes, your business taxes, whatever, your federal taxes in Bitcoin. With all the proceeds deposited into the newly created strategic Bitcoin reserve, quote, by allowing taxpayers to pay federal taxes in Bitcoin and directing those funds into a strategic Bitcoin reserve, The nation gains a tangible asset that appreciates over time unlike the US dollar which is susceptible to inflation. This bill strengthens the nation's financial foundation and positions The US to lead. Lead, not follow in the global race towards sound money and digital innovation.
A race towards sound money. We'll say that again just for effect. A race towards sound money. We used to have sound money until you guys screwed it up. This is what so are are we racing backwards? Are we trying to travel back through time so that we can find what we've lost because we decided to destroy it? How is this a race towards something that we've already had and screwed up? I I think this is a terrible choice of words. In fact, he could have made that statement very much stronger in the face of Bitcoiners by recognizing we used to have sound money, but it has so been it been so effectively destroyed forever and ever and ever that now we have to actually go towards the future and revitalize, rescue the concept of sound money back from the clutches of idiocy and incompetence.
But that's just me and, you know, whatever. Under the proposed legislation, taxpayers would be able to transfer Bitcoin to the treasury or to approve financial agents designated by the secretary of the treasury. The transferred BTC would count as full satisfaction of tax liabilities with no capital gains recognized on the transaction. Fair market value at the time of transfer would then determine the amount credited, similar to how foreign currency payments are handled today. The bill also empowers the Treasury to establish robust custody measures for the strategic Bitcoin Reserve Provisions include cold storage, multi sig wallets, and geographically distributed storage facilities Bitcoin deposited into the reserve would be held for at least twenty years, according to the bill, with limited scheduled dispositions allowed only after that period, ensuring the assets are preserved for future generations.
The legislation is intended to bolster national financial resilience by diversifying US assets into a noninflationary, appreciating store value. The 21,000,000 coin supply of Bitcoin creates inherent scarcity, offering a hedge against long term currency devaluation. And Davidson and supporters argue in a conversation with the Bitcoin Policy Institute that this move reduces reliance on debt and strengthens The US balance sheet. Other major nations like China and Russia are already accumulating Bitcoin, Davidson contends. And by adding Bitcoin into federal finances, he believes The United States can maintain its competitive edge in the digital economy. Quote, other nations are actively acquiring Bitcoin to diversify reserves and protect against global financial instability.
The United States risks falling behind unless it takes a similar approach. And that language is a quote written directly into the bill itself. In his conversation with BPI, Davidson discussed the long term national benefits of the bill, noting that if The United States had been accumulating Bitcoin since 2012, it could help address the nation's 38,000,000,000,000, that's trillion with a t, amounts of debt. 38,000,000,000,000 in debt. That's reprehensible. Anyway, Davidson also stressed that the bill is opt in and democratic explaining, quote, every American, every American can basically make the choice at the end of the year to contribute to the reserve, end quote. On the broader vision for sound money, he argued, quote, money is increasingly designed as a surveillance system.
Bitcoin's premise is kind of a return to sound money, separating money from the state. Oh, that's not gonna make him any friends in Washington. The act also highlights Bitcoin's decentralized permissionless system as a tool to expand financial access By enabling payment of federal taxes in bitcoin, the government can provide more Americans, including unbanked or underserved populations, an opportunity to participate in the digital economy. For context, back in March, The US formally established a strategic Bitcoin reserve via executive order signed by Trump, making it the largest nation state BTC holder with an estimated 200,000 Bitcoin.
Funded entirely through government held assets seized in criminal and civil proceedings, the reserve cost taxpayers, well, nothing. The order mandates a full audit of federal BTC holdings, prohibits any sales from the reserve, and allows budget neutral acquisitions of additional BTC. And it's that last phrase, allows. Actually, it doesn't allow. The the strategic Bitcoin reserve requires the addition of Bitcoin, but only through budget neutral acquisitions. And what Davidson is saying and by the way, that's the end of the article. What Davidson is is proposing here in this bill is exactly that. It is a budget neutral acquisition of Bitcoin.
Here's the problem. The United States government burns through tax receipts. You know, when we pay our taxes in at various times of the year, they burn through that like it's I don't know. I don't even know how to describe it. It's like setting gas on fire. I yeah. John is it just it just like, we get it, and it's immediately gone. So what Davidson proposes is gonna be a big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big problem for all the spin thrifts in Washington, DC because they hate holding money. They've gotta give it to their friends. That is that is absolutely required of them at this point to make sure that they give all tax dollars to a whole bunch of idiots who don't really know what to do with money except, I don't know, whatever it is that they do. You get my point.
So how Davidson's gonna get this bill to fly is beyond my wildest imaginings. Because if even if if we were to just leave Bitcoin out of it entirely, what this bill is suggesting is that the United States government save money. I don't think that they're prepared to do that. Let's move on. Bitcoin ASIC producer, Bitmain, under US investigation over national security risk. Cointelegraph Adrian Zmunski is writing this one. The leading Bitcoin mining application specific integrated circuit manufacturer, Bitmain, based in China, is reportedly under investigation in The United States over national security concerns.
According to a Friday Bloomberg report, an unspecified US official and six other anonymous people who are familiar with the matter said that Bitmain's hardware is at the center. The hardware is at the center of a federal investigation known as Operation Red Sunset. Wow. Y'all need a better marketing team. The investigation, led by the US Department of Homeland Security, Those dipshits. Reportedly seek to determine whether the ASICs could be remotely controlled for spying or to sabotage The US power grid. Again, that is not how this works. That, goddamn it, that's not how this works.
I just okay. I I gotta calm down. US authorities previously investigated Bitmain linked Chinese chip designer, Xiamen Esofago, wow, over an alleged business relationship with US sanctioned company, Huawei, in October 2024. And then it was followed by the US Customs and Border Protection Agency halting the delivery of thousands of Bitmain ASICs the following month. Authorities only began releasing the hardware in March. Consequences for The US crypto mining industry could be far reaching since Bitmain controls over 80 of Bitcoin mining ASIC markets according to a Cambridge report that is.
Chinese dominance in the industry is even more ironclad with both Bitmain and the second largest manufacturer, MicroBT, based in Mainland China controlling 97% of the market share on their own. Holy smokes. That's not good. In some cases, investigators even disassembled Bitmain ASICs, oh, to look. They actually looked for malicious capabilities, the anonymous officials told Bloomberg. They declined to say if anything was actually found, though. A Bitmain spokesperson told Bloomberg that it is unequivocally false that the company is capable of remotely controlling its machines.
Okay? That's a bold faced lie right there. I I'm not on anybody's side here. Okay? Bitmain actually could remote control their machines at least in one aspect. Back in 2017, when the block size wars were on fire, we discovered something called ASIC boost. And it turns out that Bitmain had a stealth software package, well, software is a bad word, a stealth code package that was in their firmware, and they could flip a switch and they could control that firmware, but it basically had some it it had only to do with hash rate or or how the hashing was actually going to take place inside the machine. It couldn't do anything else. It couldn't it couldn't reach out to the transformer of the machine and say, hey, screw up the entire US power grid with your, you know, two hundred and and forty volt transformer here inside this box. It's just ridiculous.
Anyway, anyway, the company representative claimed that it strictly complies with US and all applicable laws and regulations and has never engaged in activities that pose a risk to US national security and is, of course, unaware of the investigation. I guess you're aware of it now. Imposing restrictive measures on Bitmain machines is also likely to lead to consequences for Trump's family. In August, a Bitcoin mining company backed by members of Trump's family, American Bitcoin, acquired a fleet of 1,600 16,000 sorry. 16,300 amp miner, units from Bitmain, and the company also inherited substantially all of Hut eight's ASICs, and that includes the 31,145 Antminer s 21 plus machines that it acquired about a year ago.
In September, American Bitcoin announced that it has preferential access to next generation ASIC compute infrastructure without explicitly citing Bitmain. US Securities and Exchange Commission filings also revealed that American Bitcoin paid through the pledge of Bitcoin with a redemption period of twenty four months from each pledge date, terms which the Guardian reports are unusually generous. With Bitmain so dominant in the space, American Bitcoin is far from the only US based crypto mining company that may be affected by the findings of this investigation. The industry already got a taste of what might happen when in mid February, publicly traded mining companies in The US felt the effects of trade tensions between The United States and China through delays in receiving shipments of their ASICs. Yes. We know all that.
No. I no. I I can't look. The who makes all the servers that that sit in Amazon's warehouses that, handle all the back end for for Amazon Web Services, AWS? What I mean, are they fundamentally different machines? I mean, are they fundamentally made by different manufacturers? Do do you really think that all the servers being purchased by Amazon are made in The United States? No. They're not. Alright. They may not be made by Bitmain, but, China. I'm sorry. It's just we don't make machines anymore. Not really. I mean, Dell might still dabble in it a little bit, but I can pretty much feel confident in saying that most of the machines that we purchase for compute infrastructure, whether for high performance computer, AI, or just server stuff at universities and AWS and, I don't know, Costco, whatever. I is probably made not in The United States, and the chips certainly aren't. That hasn't been true for years. So what's different about Bitmain?
Why is it because it's ASICs do The last I heard, ASICs can't do a damn thing but perform the SHA two fifty six algorithm, so I'm pretty sure it's not not in the ASICs side of the equation that they're worried about. So is it the firmware in the controlling aspect of the ASIC that's somehow different and inherently malicious? You know, it's different. Oh, it's different than all the computers at Amazon warehouses. See, this is all bullshit, and I don't know why they're even going after it. But, you know, they're gonna do what they're gonna do. They sure as shit ain't gonna listen to me. And neither is Michael Saylor because he's already dismissing everything.
Right? So here we go. Michael Zimmerman writing this one for Bitcoin Mag. Strategies, Michael Saylor dismisses index concerns, quote, our conviction in Bitcoin is unwavering. Well, that's good to know, Mike. Saylor pushed back on recent reports warning that strategy could face billions in passive outflows if MSCI excludes the companies from major equity indices. In a statement on x, Saylor said the strategy is, quote, not a fund, not a trust, not a holding company, end quote. He described the firm as a publicly traded operating company with a $500,000,000 software business and a unique treasury treasury strategy that uses Bitcoin as productive capital.
Saylor highlighted the company's recent activity including five, count them, five public offerings of digital credit securities, STRK, STRF, STRD, STRC, and STRE, representing $7,700,000,000 in notional value. He also pointed to Stretch, the STRC side of it, a Bitcoin back credit instrument that offers variable monthly USD yields to institutional and retail investors, quote, funds and trusts passively hold assets. Holding companies simply sit on investments. We create structure, issue, and operate, Saylor wrote, quote, no passive vehicle or holding company could do what we're doing, end quote.
He describes strategy as a new kind of enterprise, a Bitcoin backed structured finance company innovating in both capital markets and software. Saylor added that index classification does not define the company. Quote, our strategy is long term. Our conviction is bit in Bitcoin is unwavering. And our mission remains unchanged to build the world's first digital monetary institution on a foundation of sound money and financial innovation. End quote. The statement comes as JPMorgan analyst warned that MSCI's potential exclusion of strategy from all major indices could trigger $2,800,000,000 in outflows rising to 8,800,000,000.0 if other index providers follow.
Strategy's market cap sits around 59,000,000,000 with nearly 9,000,000,000 held in passive index tracking vehicles. Analysts said any exclusion could increase selling pressure, widen funding spreads, and reduce trading liquidity. Strategies inclusion in indices such as the Nasdaq one hundred, MSCI USA, and MSCI World has long helped channel the Bitcoin trade into mainstream portfolios. However, MSCI is reportedly evaluating whether companies with large digital asset holdings should remain in traditional equity benchmarks. Market participants increasingly see digital asset heavy companies as closer to investment funds, which are ineligible for indexing in in yeah.
Ineligible for index inclusion. That's a lot of n's. Anyway, despite all the recent Bitcoin volatility and concerns about potential outflows, the company continues to pursue its long term vision of a Bitcoin backed financial enterprise aiming to create brand spanking new financial products and a digitally native monetary institution. On October 10, Bitcoin and the broader crypto market crashed. Some believe it was because Trump threatened tariffs on China, but some contend that the broader crash was triggered when MSCI announced it was reviewing whether companies that hold crypto as a core business like strategy should be classified as funds rather than operating companies.
And some contend that Smart Money anticipated this risk immediately after MSCI's announcement, leading to the sharp market drop with the outcome now hinging on MSCI's 01/15/2026 decision. So January 15 is is a red letter date as to what their decision's gonna be. But before we finish this off, I wanna make a statement here. Micah in this in writing this piece is is sort of throwing it out to us that it was either the China tariff threats on October 10 or or the whole thing with MSCI announcing that it was reviewing whether companies, that hold crypto's core businesses should be cert classified as funds rather than operating companies, which changes the entire landscape of what's going on.
How is it not both? They both happened roughly around the exact same time. They both I mean, honestly, they're they're both negative energies. So when you add them together, they're gonna be even more negative. So how is it one or the other? It's not. It's both. Right? We have cascading pieces of bad news that keep coming out. The the world's economy, we're we keep looking at Bitcoin like it's, oh, look what's happened to Bitcoin. It's not that. Bitcoin is just is it's like holding up a a giant globe that is a mirror, like a like, literally a sphere that is a perfect sphere and a perfect mirror, and it mirrors everything that that is around it, including the happenings of the global economy.
I don't think it's fair to blame Bitcoin for the fact that Bitcoin's price went down. We've got to look at what Bitcoin is reflecting back to us, and and we do that by recognizing that its price has dropped by 35%. Okay. What the hell is going on in the world? Stop looking at the price of Bitcoin. What the hell is going on in the world? It's everything is on fire. It's look at people like Peter Schiff are like, look, man, Bitcoin sucks. It's like, do you have any capacity to look beyond anything and say, well, why is it doing this? And and people who is like, yeah, people are just tired of Bitcoin.
Nope. Nope. That's not it. The world's economy is burning to the ground as we speak. Nothing nothing can be done to stop it. It's an inevitability. We've bucked the money so thoroughly and so soundly that there's no there's no rescuing anything from the current situation or the past. We have to go with Bitcoin. Continuing on, earlier this year in an interview with Bitcoin magazine, Saylor outlined an ambitious vision to build a trillion dollar Bitcoin balance sheet. He wants to accumulate $1,000,000,000,000 in Bitcoin and growing at 20 to 30% annually. From this base, Saylor plans to issue Bitcoin back credit at yields significantly higher than traditional fiat systems.
He anticipates this could revitalize credit markets, equity indices, and corporate balance sheets while creating new financial products, including higher yield savings accounts, money market funds, and even insurance services denominated in Bitcoin. So even though strategy stock is not doing good, like it's down a 100, like, wow, a $167.95 a share, wow, that's that is but then if you actually go look at the chart of of strategy and you look at it from, like, a long, long time scale, it was trading at $13 a share, $10 a share, $11 a share years ago. Would you like $10 a share?
Or would you rather own it at a $167.95 a share, especially if you bought it at $10 a share? This is not that hard of a decision to make. I I'm just saying, I I I think I think people put too much trust in Sailor, but I also think that they put too much blame on Sailor. Sailor's just Sailor. He's just a dude. He's got three yachts. My question about sailor is, why do you need more than one yacht? The only thing I can figure out is that he's a sailing buff, so therefore, he's he's really into being on the water, I guess, and he needs more than one boat to do it. But it's a good place to get squeaky clean in the water, and you can do that with SoapMiner at soapminer.com.
Handmade tallow soaps from SoapMiner at soapminer.com. That's soapminer.com. He's got all kinds of handmade tallow, 100% grass fed beef tallow soap, cedarwood. Oh, he's offering a quintessential bundle. He's got, a bundle of four soaps for $28. Of course, you can buy it all in Bitcoin. Pine tar, lavender, cedarwood, and lemongrass in a bundle. Nice. So he's got goat's milk tallow. He's got orange clove tallow. He's got, tea tree tallow. He's got peppermint tallow. He's got earl gray tallow, which is one of my favorites. And my other favorite is redacted. Get your soap from soapminer.com.
It's the best soap in the business, and he's a true Bitcoiner. Otherwise, he wouldn't be in the circle p where I bring plebs with goods and services just like you to plebs just like you who wanna buy those goods and services, but you're gonna be buying into Bitcoin because if you ain't selling it in Bitcoin, you ain't in the circle p. Use the code Bitcoin and to get 10% off of your entire purchase at soap miner dot com. Bitcoin and, use the term Bitcoin and, Bitcoin and at soapminer.com, get 10% off. And it also lets Soap Miner know that I made the sale for him here on the Bitcoin and show, and then he can get me back on the other side with however many Satoshis he thinks the sale was worth. Okay.
Right before we run all of the numbers, let's get into this one from CoinDesk. Bitcoin bounces above 48 48. 84,000 as Fed's Williams puts December rate cut back on the table. Christian Sandor, like I said, from CoinDesk. Bitcoin staged a modest rebound in the morning, US hours Friday after a 10% sell off overnight as the likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate cut in December jumped sharply following dovish remarks from New York Fed president John Williams. Quote, I see I still see room for a further adjustment in the near term to the target range for the federal funds rate to move the stance of policy closer to the range of neutral. Wow. That is an interesting sentence.
Quote, looking ahead, it is imperative to restore inflation to our 2% longer run goal on a sustained basis. It is equally important to do so without creating undue risks to our maximum employment goal, end quote. William's comment stands in stark contrast to those of leading Fed hawk, Cleveland Fed president, Beth Hammack, who yesterday more or less brushed off any labor market worry, instead choosing to focus on inflation and what she believes is a bubbly stock market. Oh, it's bubbly. Remember, if it's not from the, Champagne region in France, it's just a bubbly stock market. Williams commented he had immediate effect upon hitting the tape, sending the price of Bitcoin from about a hun oh, 81,000 to back above 84,000.
It was trading at $83.05 at press time. Still down 9.5% over the past twenty four hours. Odds, the odds for a 25 or 25 basis point rate cut at the Fed's December meeting spiked to 70% up sharply from just 39% a day ago according to CME FedWatch tool. Okay. So at least one Fed governor is talking dovish. But choosing some language that I find rather odd, let's just leave it at that and we'll run the numbers. CNBC. Energy getting kicked in the crotch today again. Brent Norsey down another 1.6% to $62.33. West Texas Intermediate down 2% to $57.82. But but here comes our savior, the hedge for energy that is natural gas. It is up 3.15%.
It's so transparent. It's sickening. $4.61 per thousand cubic feet. Gasoline down 2 and a quarter to a buck 87. Murbaugh crude down 1 and a half to $63.84. Metals are pretty much in the green today. Palladium is moving sideways. Gold is up point 6% to $4,085. Platinum is up point 4%. Silver is down a half. Copper is up almost a full point. Most of ag is in the green today. Biggest winner is rough rice, 2.6% to the upside. Chocolate getting squashed 2.12% to the downside. Live cattle getting a bit of a reprieve, 0.15.
Nope. Just flipped over. A a quarter point to the upside for live cattle. Lean hogs down two and a quarter percent, so more McRibs on the way. Feeder cattle down point 16%. And it looks like there's a rally in equity indices here. S and P is up 1.14%. Nasdaq is up point eight. The Dow is up almost one and a half points, and the S and P Mini, Oh, man. Two and a half percent in the green side. Yay. But Bitcoin's at $83,760, a mere $1,670,000,000,000 market cap. We can only purchase 20.6 ounces of our favorite shiny metal rock with our one Bitcoin, of which there are 19,951,609 oh, 629.29 of, and average fees per block are normal to 0.03.
BTC taking the fees on a per block basis. It's about 27 blocks carrying 39,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear. High priorities get you in at three. Low priorities at 1 satoshi per vbyte. Hash rate, still in Zetahash territory. 1.06. Yesterday, it was zero five. 1.06 Zetahashes per second is all the speed you need on Bitcoin. From Bitcoin Core on the Brink, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin Ant, I got God's death giving me 237 sats says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. 1,000 sats from Third Coast Hoddle says thank you for the help on primal. I am still learning about nostrils, so I just went with the tip here since I am familiar. You are more than welcome, sir. Nick Dos +1 07 says cheers. Well, cheers back to you, pal.
Richard Dick Whitman with 200 says, free samurai. I hear that, brother. Pies with +1 21 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that's the weather report. Welcome to part two of the news that you can use prediction market. Cal, she's valuation jumps to $11,000,000,000 after a reported $1,000,000,000 raise, Vince De Aquino, from Decrypt dot CEO. US prediction market platform, Calshi, reportedly pushed its valuation to roughly $11,000,000,000 after raising 1,000,000,000 in a yet undisclosed funding round according to an initial report from TechCrunch citing a source with knowledge of the deal.
The rise in valuation marks one of the fastest step ups in the prediction market sector this year. The company closed around weeks after securing 300,000,000 at a $5,000,000,000 valuation in October. Trading activity, market depth, and user adoption continued to climb into this year's final quarter. Kalshi's annualized trading volume reached about $50,000,000,000 last month according to a report from crypto analytics platform, CryptoRank. The figure marks a dramatic jump from roughly 300,000,000 just one year ago. So from $300,000,000 to $50,000,000,000 in volume in a year.
That's impressive. It's sad because that's how much degenerate gambling we have going on, but I gotta say, man, that's impressive. Anyway, it has also outpaced Polymarket, its main rival in the space. Just last month, it generated approximately $4,400,000,000 in trading volume, surpassing Polymarket's 4,100,000,000.0 during the same month. About a third of bets on Kalshi are for sports related markets according to a Dune dashboard. Weekly notional volume among prediction markets have also been on a steady rise since September according to a broader dashboard from the same maintainer. Sequoia Capital and Capital g reportedly led the deal joined by, of course, Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a sixteen z.
Paradigm, Anthos Capital, Neo, and other returning backers. Cauchy's raise just shows the ceiling is only getting higher for prediction markets, and we haven't seen nothing yet. Yeah. You haven't seen the depths of human degeneracy is another way to phrase that one. But this was spoken by Farrokh Sarmad, cofounder and president of rival prediction market platform, Myriad, in his discussion with Decrypt. I'm just I'm still, like, still reveling in just how degenerate we've become. Kalshi declined to comment for this article. Decrypt has reached out, blah blah blah blah blah. I haven't heard shit yet. Prediction markets have long faced legal friction in The United States given how such platforms sit between regulated derivatives and prohibitive gambling or prohibited gambling, creating a jurisdictional tension that has so far so far shaped the industry's growth. Let me pause.
It sits between regulated derivatives and prohibited gambling. Derivatives is gambling, but it's allowed. Let's be clear about what a derivative is. It is not a price discovery mechanism. People will say that I'm wrong, and I'll get, like, you know, if I was in saying that in the presence of a Nobel laureate economist, I'd be, of course, hogtied and and and laid out, you know, on on train tracks like a damsel in distress, and and, you know, the guy's twisted his mustache. But I'm right, and this person is wrong. Derivatives are gambling.
Most of the economy is based upon degenerate gambling behavior. Derivatives, supradervatives, x three derivatives, leverage, Leverage longs, leverage shorts, futures. We need them for price discovery. No. No, we actually don't. You know what we need for price discovery? I got 10 people in a room. How much do you want to pay for this barrel of oil? How much is it worth to you? Let the bidding begin. Auctions. That's how you get price discovery. And it just so happens, the free market is the largest auction house in the world where everybody's bidding on everything else in real time. That's your price discovery.
Derivatives, futures, leverages, it's all bullshit. It's just gambling. It's just legalized gambling. Please understand that. When somebody tells you how important derivatives are to the market, just either stop listening to them or if you so choose, look them square in the face and say, I'm sorry. You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. You are a degenerate gambler and you might actually have better luck going to Ruidosa Downs in New Mexico and laying bets on the ponies. Regardless, Kalshi won a high profile lawsuit last year against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, securing the right to offer election markets to The US users.
The ruling accelerated domestic growth, but opened new fronts with state regulators who view certain types of contracts as gambling products rather than, of course, federally governed derivatives, which as we just went through are is gambling. In May, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission moved to drop its appeal against Kalshi's victory in a case allowing the company to offer US contracts on election outcomes still. The company has concurrent disputes with several state regulators who argue its contracts still fall under gambling statutes rather than commodities law.
Let's bet on the price of onions, showing. Months later, its rival, Polymarket, received approval from the same regulator to operate in The US years, years after it was fined and pushed offshore over allegations that it failed to comply with the regulators' federal policies. I guess federal policies on what? Degenerate gambling? I don't know. But it is odd that Calshi has completely overtaken Polymarket. An interesting dynamic to watch as we move forward. Another kind of gambling altogether from Kyle Baird, writing from The Block, leveraged shares, which is the name of a company, leveraged shares to debut first three x Bitcoin and shitcoin number one ETFs in Europe amid retail led crypto sell off.
Is it the right time to introduce this kind of product? Let's find out. Leverage shares is set to launch the very first three x and or three x Bitcoin and Shitcoin number one ETFs in Europe next week. The firm's four new ETPs, three x long and three x short products for both Bitcoin and Shitcoin number one will list on Switzerland's SIX exchange expanding a leveraged roster that already includes vehicles tied to semiconductors, AI, blue chip baskets, and single stock names. A leveraged ETF uses derivatives and debt to amplify the daily returns of the underlying security. Oh my god.
It it's like it's like plumbing the depths of the most degenerate colon of humanity that you will ever find. Even gerbils cannot stand being this far down this asshole. This is ridiculous. Using derivatives and debt to amplify the daily returns of an underlying security hogwash. It's all hogwash. I'm adjusting my monocle and tipping my top hat here, and I'm gonna twirl my mustache. Balchunas noted, this is Eric Balchunas, by the way, the timing is either really good or really bad depending on your point of view given the current market backdrop. That backdrop includes a sharp pullback in crypto ETF demand.
Retail investors have withdrawn $4,000,000,000 from spot Bitcoin and Shitcoin number one ETFs so far in November, already exceeding February's record outflows according to JPMorgan. The bank's analyst said Bitcoin's dropped below their estimated production cost support level of 94,000 has accelerated selling from non crypto native retail holders of spot ETFs even as perpetual futures deleveraging has stabilized since October. Meanwhile, retail investors have added roughly 96,000,000,000 to equity ETFs this month, including leveraged stock products even as traditional markets edge lower.
Everything's getting hammered, dude. The Vanguard S and P five hundred ETF, the world's largest ETF with more than $700,000,000,000 in assets, slipped below $600 for the first time in over two months, about 5% off its late October peak. Crypto markets have been hit far harder. Bitcoin is down 35% from early October's all time high above 126,000, while Shitcoin number one, who cares? I don't care. Well, actually, it's fallen more than 43% over the same stretch, but, honestly, all I care about is the ether b the BTC ether chart. I I don't even look at ether versus the USD. It's it's it's ridiculous.
Anyway, three x longs and shorts already prepackaged, which I find odd. Right? I mean, remember BitMex? Yeah. I could just I mean, I never did. I I I never actually got on BitMex to to go trade, but I could if or I could have, had I wanted to, selected my amount of leverage that I'm going to use when I'm degenerate gambling. It's very, very sad to watch humanity do this. That we got literally no grander goal in mind for something with the hardware that we've been given up in our skulls. Each one of us, 8,000,000,000 supercomputers walking around this planet, and we come up with McDonald's and derivative gambling and then regular gambling most of which is illegal.
That's that's that's the pinnacle right now. We used to have it. We used to have moonshots space programs. We used to build cathedrals. We used to build whole towns that still stand to this day that people absolutely adore. The people that live there just take care of it and and and nothing's changed since Roman times. Yet you can't build a brand new McDonald's and have it last any longer than twenty years before it needs to be bulldozed and rebuilt again because that's the way it was actually built. It was built to degrade. It was built so that when they change their marketing plans in the future, they already have a plan to dispose of any of the old marketing culture that they might have, you know, driven into into the psyche of their of the people that are their customers.
As built to be destroyed. Cars are built to fall apart. Toasters are built to break. Vacuum cleaners are built to self destruct. And we have supercomputers, 8,000,000,000 of them walking around the planet, and this is what we come up with. Well done, sir. Well done. Alright. I am I was going to read this one from John Carballo, but it is Friday before the weekend of the week of Thanksgiving. So what I'm gonna do is I've got all kinds of stuff that I gotta go do. And I'm gonna go do that instead of maybe I'll revisit John Carvallo. I do plan on cutting episodes of Bitcoin and during the week of Thanksgiving. I'm not gonna leave you guys out in the wind to twist. Alright?
Thanksgiving Day, that one's for me, but tune in. I will be dropping episodes through the week of Thanksgiving, and I will see you then 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.
Opening, episode setup, and agenda tease
Strategic Bitcoin Reserve details and fiscal implications
Macro lens: tariffs, MSCI review, and Bitcoin as a mirror of the economy
Value-for-value shoutouts and transition back to news
Wrap-up, programming note for Thanksgiving week, and sign-off
