Join me today for Episode 963 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- Daily Hit of Hopium
- Mining Rigs Securities? NO!
- UK ATM Conviction
- Japan's Surprise Move Did Affect BTC Price
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
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https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/09/30/bitcoin-tumbles-back-below-64k-as-surprise-japan-prime-minister-choice-triggers-5-plunge-in-nikkei/
https://decrypt.co/251285/crypto-mining-rig-sales-securities-sec-green-united
https://www.theblock.co/post/318694/uk-crypto-atm-conviction
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[00:00:00]
David Bennett:
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 9:26 am Pacific Daylight Time. It's the last day of September.
Woo! Kissing September goodbye in 2024. This is episode 963 of Bitcoin and might be a little bit more of a shorter show today. Not honestly, there's not a whole lot going on, of course, except for the stair stepping down of the Bitcoin price. We'll get into that. There seems to be at least some conjecture as to what occurred last night. Something to do with Japan. And we got a couple of other things going on. We've got some, OpenSats things going on. We got Ocean Mining is in the news. We've got something that I've never heard of before. We'll we'll get into that. Live Wallet or something like that. And ARC.
I'm specifically interested in ARC. And there is news about ARC. And if you don't know what Ark is, you'll find out. But, you know, just to whet your appetite, it's another layer 2, like a full blown layer 2 for Bitcoin that rides on top of the consensus layer. Very much like, the lightning network, only it seeks to solve a different kind of issue, and we'll get into all of that. But first, let's get your daily hit of hopium out of decryp.c0. Mertza Merchant is writing this one. Bitcoin ETFs pulled in yet another $1,000,000,000 last week. That's billion with a b. Bitcoin Spot ETFs have attracted over $1,000,000,000 in net inflows in the past 1 week, its highest since last July.
An expert said it's evidence that institutional investors have become increasingly receptive to digital assets. The surge in investment comes as Bitcoin's price lingers around the $64,000 mark despite a slight dip in early Monday trading. BlackRock's Ethereum led with an inflow of $94,900,000 followed by Fidelity's Ethereum. Oh, god. We're talk why are they talking about Ethereum? I'm just gonna skip over all the Ethereum crap because that's bullshit. Alright. So the robust inflows into Bitcoin ETFs have not gone unnoticed by industry experts. Avinash Shikhar, co founder and CEO of Pi42, an Indian crypto derivatives platform, told Decrypt that the surge in net inflows for spot Bitcoin ETFs reflect a strong resurgence in investor confidence, particularly following the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut.
Shikhar also noted that the renewed interest in other ETFs recorded their 2nd best week since launch. The trends that we are observing indicate that the market is increasingly receptive to digital assets suggesting promising opportunities for bitcoin. The influx of capital into bitcoin based financial products apparently indicates a growing confidence in the cryptocurrency market amid macroeconomic developments, particularly in, you guessed it, Japan, which is planning to review its cryptocurrency regulations. And that could lead to reduced taxes on digital assets and potentially facilitate the launch of a domestic fund that invests in tokens according to a Bloomberg report. Now, if you're thinking that's what I was talking about when I was talking about Japan, that ain't it. That's a whole other piece of news. But as of early morning Monday, European hours.
Bitcoin was trading at 63.80, down approximately 2.8% from previous levels. And then shitcoin number 1 was also down as well. But who cares? Data from crypto asset manager, Coinshares, further supports the bullish sentiment. Cause the firm reported that digital asset investment products saw the 3rd consecutive week of inflows totaling $1,200,000,000 This trend is attributed to expectations of dovish monetary policy in the United States and positive price momentum with total assets under management rising by 6.2% this week. Okay. So listen up, guys. Here at about in a little over an hour from me speaking right now, Jerome Powell is going to give a speech, and he's going to basically it's going to be the minutes essentially for, for the Federal Reserve.
And we generally speaking, we always know what the Fed did the day that they actually raise or lower or keep rates neutral. But we have to wait a couple of weeks before we actually hear the rest of the story. And we don't know what the rest of the story is until Jerome Powell starts, you know, actually talking, which he will do here in a little over an hour. That is where a lot of people like, what is he wearing? What color? Seriously, I'm not lying. Like, what color suit is he wearing? What color tie is he wearing? What is his facial expressions? What are his hand expressions?
What is the tone of voice that he's using? And clearly, what is he actually saying. And what they're doing is they're trying to measure is that they're gonna continue to be dovish? Are they gonna remain neutral? Are they gonna go, you know, are they gonna go hardcore? Nobody knows until Jerome Powell starts talking. And within minutes after Jerome Powell talks, you will see a slew of stories. You will see the price of Bitcoin and the general markets react. Nobody knows what's going on until Jerome Powell actually sits up there and speaks, Which, in my opinion, is entirely too much power for one single person to have. Now, let's get into a little bit more about this Japan situation.
So you might be wondering, what the hell happened last night? Why did we start going down in price? I mean, we were sitting at a cool 65,500 and now we're chilling out at 63,500. So, you know, $2,000 just wiped off the books of Bitcoin price and it started last night. So what happened? Maybe Steven Alfer from CoinDesk will help us out here because he says Bitcoin tumbling back below 64 ks as a surprise Japan prime minister choice triggers a 5% plunge in the Nikke. And that's their stock exchange or whatever. After a quick, roughly 14% run higher following the US Federal Reserve's 50 basis point rate cut nearly 2 weeks ago, conditions seemed ripe for something to set off a sizable sell off in Bitcoin and the selection of a new prime minister in Japan over the weekend appears to be the trigger. Oh, joy.
It's a surprise choice. That country's ruling party selected Shigeru Ishiba to be its next prime minister. Without getting too much into the inside of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, it's commonly believed that Ishiba is supportive of the Bank of Japan's plan to return monetary policy to normalcy. That means higher interest rates. And that I'm pausing here, okay? This isn't what they're saying, but remember, higher interest rates is what we got. You know, coming in coming into August of this last year, Japan did that. And when they did that, they triggered a wave of sell offs for everything from Bitcoin to general equity markets because people needed to cover their yen carry trades.
And if you don't think that shit won't happen again, then you're fooling yourself. It just depends on whenever these people picked up their loan from the Bank of Japan in yen to buy whatever asset that they were gonna buy. Right? So, if they go higher, expect more sell offs in other markets. We're not out of the woods yet. And I don't think we're ever going to be as long as people continue to attach the price of Bitcoin with what the legacy markets are doing. It's just not it's just not that asset but we're treating it that way so just anyway just be prepared alright be prepared following his selection as prime minister ishiba called for snap elections to be held in late October.
Recall, it was the BOJ's very modest rate hike in July, oh, here we go, that caused a violent unwind in the so called yen carry trade and subsequent global panic in financial markets, sending Bitcoin plunging from about 70 k to below 50 k in the space of just a few days. The selling was so ugly that the BOJ had to send out a former official to try and calm the markets by saying the bank wasn't going to hike rates again in 2024. Well, the selection of a Shiba over the weekend triggered another rise in the yen and a quick 5% decline in Japan's Nikkei stock average or Nikkei, with the selling apparently spreading to Bitcoin, which quickly fell from about 66,000 to as low as 63300 and then bounced back to 638100.
And now it's backed down again to 636 just so you keep an if you keep an score. European stocks are lower by roughly 1%. Prior to the weekend action, Bitcoin had been enjoying a strong bull run since the Fed slashed its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points in mid September. Helping the move was China launching its own wave of monetary and fiscal stimulus to help boost that country's economy and markets. After enjoying its best week in more than a decade, the Shanghai Composite soared another 8% on Monday. A number of indicators late last week pointed to overbought conditions and among them said CoinDesk analyst James Van Straten perpetual funding rates for Bitcoin futures Van Straten noted that they've risen to levels near those seen just prior to the late July and last August sell offs.
This week brings the start of a new month. And with a number of key economic reports and central bank talk, Later on Monday, Fed chair Jerome Powell could comment on the on the economic and monetary policy outlook in a speech at the annual meeting for the National Association For Business Economics. Tuesday Thursday, we'll see US manufacturing and service sector reports from the Institute of Supply Management or the ISM. And the main event will be on Friday with the September jobs report, which most likely will be revised down 2 months after they released it. So whatever number they give us, don't believe it. Don't trust them. They're probably lying. Anyway, the data could go a long way in influencing the Fed rate decision at its next policy meeting in early November.
At the moment, at the moment, ladies and gentlemen, markets are giving about a 2 and 3 chance of a 25 basis point Fed rate cut according to the CME Fed watch. It was the Fed somewhat surprisingly moving 50 instead of 25 points at its September meeting which triggered this most recent bull move. A sizable change in the November rate cut odds might again affect the price path. Okay. So, under also understand that the, next Fed decision being in in early November is actually right after the presidential election. So it's gonna be fireworks all the way around. You got a new prime minister in Japan who might start raising interest rates over there at their central bank and and and all of a sudden, more yen carry trades are in serious jeopardy.
Right? It's gonna that that could really suck. I don't think Japan really has the ability to do anything other than raise their interest rates. But what are we gonna do? What's the Federal Reserve gonna do? What's my gut feeling? My gut feeling is that they keep the rates the same. That against all odds, I'm the lone dude out there saying that they ain't gonna do nothing. Why would I say that? Well, because they cut 50 and then we started getting jobs and, you know, economic information in like PCI and CME or whatever. All these kinds of new reports started coming out that was saying that inflation was not not really under control.
And the whole impetus of the Fed cutting rates as much as they did. Even even just cutting in 25 let's pretend they just cut them 25 basis points, not 50. They did that because they were telling us, lo and behold, they've got inflation, then we've solved the problem. Well, then they made the cut, but instead of 25, they actually did do 50. And then we started getting other reports out that said that no, no, no, no, no, not really. So that's why I'm thinking that we are certainly not going to see a 50 basis point cut in November. Right?
I honestly don't believe we're going to see any cuts come November. What's gonna be funky as hell though is what Japan does, when they do it, and how that relates to the timing of the United States presidential elections. Because that thing all by itself, all other things being equal, is gonna be a shit show. It's gonna be a shit show. My God Almighty. But let's get back to a little bit about a Bitcoin. Crypto mining rig sales, are they securities? Not so fast, according to lawyers. Decrypt Liz Napolitano is writing this one. A federal judge denied a crypto firm's request last week to dismiss an SEC complaint alleging that the sale of its purported mining hardware to customers constituted an investment contract.
And while the move spurred some speculation on social media over the implications for such hardware, legal analysts say that there's no immediate reason for concern. According to the lawsuit filed March of 2023 in the US District Court for the District of Utah, Green United allegedly defrauded investors of $18,000,000 by selling them quote green boxes that failed to mine digital tokens called green as promised. That's because the, god forbid, I hate to do this to y'all, but the Ethereum based tokens couldn't actually be mined, the suit claims. The ongoing case forms federal regulators' latest attempt to eradicate garden variety fraud within the crypto industry and beyond.
Quote, they gave people money and they wanted to profit off of it. Said Ishmael Green, a partner at law firm Diaz Roos. This is a classic fraud case. It's not even real. It's not even a real case. It's ridiculous. Although, the lawsuit is another step in the grand scheme of the US crypto policy and the SEC's approach to regulation by enforcement. Another lawyer argued to decrypt that it's not as consequential to the future of cryptocurrency mining in general as the agency's litigation against Coinbase or Ripple. All of these cases are important, but this one far less important, said Terrence Yang, strategic advisor at Swan Bitcoin.
Given that Green United's motion to dismiss the case has been denied, the lawsuit will go on to be heard in a federal court. And in its complaint, the SEC alleges the Green United deposited green tokens into investors' account to create the appearance of a successful mining operation despite the fact that green tokens, an ethereum based ERC20 token, could not be mined and did not come from mining related activities at all. The SEC also alleges that Green has no realizable value contrary to representations made by Green United at the time, of its hardware sales anyway.
Green United has denied those allegations in a separate legal filing. Ishmael Greene, the Diaz Roos reporter told Decrypt that the SEC's case is unlikely to have any implications for typical mining hardware, which users operate to support networks and try to generate crypto rewards like on Bitcoin. In this specific case, the SEC is alleging that mining wasn't actually happening on the boxes sold to users. It's fine so long as the mining rigs are sold with the understanding that the end user will be doing the mining, he based on his understanding of the case. Quote, in Green United, the mining rig was sold with an agreement that stated Green United would control and run the system, he added.
The lawsuit also contains allegations that Green United's so called mining equipment comprise a securities investment. That means the case could potentially have implications for hosted mining services, which Green United purported to offer. Okay. Even though that the SEC didn't explicitly mention hosted mining in its complaint. In a posted statement, however, Green United attempted to paint the SEC's case as a mischaracterization of what was actually happening, writing that SEC lawyers try to change the law by classifying hosted mining as a security, a practice performed by numerous public companies.
Green United also said that offered refunds to buyers, but that only a very small minority of node owners requested said refund. Neither the SEC nor Green United responded to a request for comment. And while the SEC and Green United are still locking horns about the legitimacy of the crypto firm's business and the classification of its mining equipment, the judge overseeing the case is far from making any determinations. Quote, the recent ruling makes a much more limited determination. End quote. According to Jacoby, the judge's rejection of Green United's motion to dismiss the case isn't a ruling in favor of the SEC's arguments, but rather a declaration that he simply intends to hear the case instead of throwing it out.
Green United's successful or unsuccessful attempt to dismiss the case isn't much of a surprise as firms commonly request dismissals according to the lawyers that spoke to decrypt. And that's because filing such a request typically has benefits for defendants regardless of whether or not they have actually violated federal securities laws. Filing to dismiss a case is almost like getting 2 bites at the apple for doing a bare minimum, Greene told decrypt. The defense receives additional time, and they also get to come up with additional legal theories as to why they're innocent. Alright. Let's go back up here.
Where oh, I had it marked. Hold on. Do do do do do do do do do do. Okay. The SEC lawyers try to change the law by classifying a hosted mining as a security, a practice performed by numerous public companies. Therein is the meat of the matter that is kind of freaking a whole bunch of people out. So if you're freaking out that all of a sudden the SEC is gonna be able to declare Bitcoin mining as a security, no. That's not what this is. Now that's not to say that they couldn't successfully, the SEC being they, that they couldn't successfully bring a lawsuit for of securities fraud against a Bitcoin mining company if they're selling their mining in a way that violates the Howey test or rather doesn't violate it, passes the Howey test. And the Howey test is how we tell whether or not something is a security.
If you pass the Howey test with flying colors, that's not good. That means you're a security. That's what passing the Howey test means. So if I were to come up to you and say, hey, I've got hosted Bitcoin mining. I'm gonna sell you a mining contract. And you're so basically, you're gonna give us the money to buy a few miners, but we're gonna be figuring out which miners to buy. We're gonna be the ones that are actually hosting said mining gear and supplying it electricity. And we're gonna be mining Bitcoin on your behalf because you want to do this because we told you that we would be able to make you a profit.
Now that's a security contract. I'm sorry, plain and simple. But if I go up to Bitmain and say I would like to buy a miner, please. They say that's $3,000 for this miner that you want. Give me the money. I say, okay. And I give them the money, and then they put a miner that I bought in a box and they send it to me and say, Sayonara, that is the completion of our deal. Well, then all they've done there, there's no promises of anything. There's no promises that they would even be able to plug it in for me. There's no promises that I'm gonna make any money whatsoever. They simply sold me a piece of hardware, not a security contract.
So, there's 2 flavors of mining here. And I guarantee you that somebody somewhere is selling Bitcoin mining services, but they're doing it in a contractual way with the offer or, well, with the promise that they're going to produce a profit with the management of third parties. That is a security and the SEC is going to come down hard on those people. But just because it's bitcoin mining, I don't want anybody freaking out because you have to do it in that particular way for for bitcoin mining to become a mining contract that is deemed a security under SEC laws. So just be aware that just because this and these guys aren't even Bitcoin mining. A, they're trying to mine a shit coin. B, it doesn't even work. This is just flat fraud.
I mean, they said, hey, we're gonna do this for you and we're gonna bind this this ERC 20 token. And it didn't even work. And if it turns out that the SEC's allegations are true, that they were just dumping this green coin bullshit into these guys' accounts to make it look like they were actually successfully mining this green token, well, then people are gonna go to jail. I'm sorry, but you you done screwed up on that one. Now, man pleads guilty, speaking of, you know, going jail, man pleads guilty to operating illegal crypto ATMs in the first of its kind UK conviction.
And this is out of the block written by James Hunt. Alumaid Asunokoya, I can't pronounce the name, pleaded guilty to 5 offenses connected with illegal crypto ATMs in the UK at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday. And in a press release, the country's financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, said that it is the 1st UK conviction for offenses related to the operation of crypto ATMs. He illegally operated at least 11 crypto ATMs in the country processing more than £2,600,000 or $3,500,000 between December of 2021 September of 2023 with profit margins between 10 60% on every transaction.
Oh my god. According to the f e FCA. Now first acting as a director of Gidiplus Limited, then as a sole practitioner, this particular person whose name I cannot pronounce continued to grow his crypto ATM network in local convenience shops across the UK despite the FCA refusing his registration back in 2021. The regulator said he completed no customer due diligence checks with the court hearing evidence that those committing money laundering or tax evasion were likely among the users of the machines. Of course, because we're all money launderers. The court also heard that this gentleman used a false alias in an attempt to evade the FCA's rules. On September 10th, he was charged with 2 offenses of operating crypto ATMs without FCA registration, facing a maximum sentence of up to 2 years in prison or a fine or both. He faces a further 2 offenses related to forgery and counterfeiting with a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, a fine or both.
He is also charged with one count of possession of criminal property which was $26,000 US in cash relating to the suspected proceeds of said crypto ATM network. The maximum sentence of which is up to 14 years in prison, a fine, or both. Sentencing will take place at London Southwark Crown Court at a debt date yet to be determined. So, the very first time that somebody's gonna go to jail for illegally operating crypto ATMs in a country and he was able to do it for 2 straight years with profit margins of 10 to 60%. Wow.
I mean, wow. Holy shit. Speaking of numbers, let's run some. CNBC Futures and Commodities looks to me like oil is having a dead decent decent day, at least a decent morning for West Texas Intermediate. 0.84 percent to the upside, but still at $68.75. Brent Norsee tagging downward $71.88 per barrel. Natural gas is down a 3rd to $2.89 per 1,000. Gasoline is up 1.38%, just under $2 per gallon. All of your shiny metal rocks are not having a good day. Gold is down a 3rd, silver is down a point, Platinum is down 3 and a quarter points. Copper is down 1 and a quarter while palladium is down 2 and a third.
Biggest winner in ag today is looks to be, oh, corn. Oh, the corn wins. 1.44% to the upside. Biggest loser is chocolate, a whopping 6.7% to the downside. Holy smokes. Live cattle up 0.16, but lean hogs down a 5th of a point. Feeder cattle down a quarter of a point. The Dow is down a quarter of a point. S and P is up but only sideways, while Nasdaq is down but only sideways. S and P Mini is up 0.04%. So everybody's waiting. Everybody is waiting for Jerome Powell to put his suit on and go stand at a podium and talk. And then we can figure out what to do with the financial future of the world. Wow. That's just a hell of a way to run a shit show, ain't it? $63,480. That's what you're gonna get for 1 Bitcoin.
$1,250,000,000,000 market cap, and you can get 24 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your 1 Bitcoin of which there are 19,760,796.12 of. Fees have dropped just a little bit, 0.05 BTC in fees on average per block. And there are 100 blocks carrying a 166,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 3, count them, 1 to 3 satoshis per v byte. And low priority is gonna get you in at the same, 3 satoshis per v byte. Mining is chilling out at 613.2 exahashes per second. So, you know, there's that. Now from Goodbye FCC, Hello SEC, Bitcoin and episode was it 962?
Yeah. And God's death with 537 says, thank you, sir. Yes. Fuck them. Fuck them to death. I hear you, pal. Let's see. What else we got? Pies to play with 420. Thank you, sir. Very important information. Thank you. User 115-56842 with 500 says, Axelrod says, sold week of shows. Cheers. Not sure what that means, but that's probably because I've only got 4 brain cells left. And Noster Gang said be like water. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I agree. Be like water. Let's see. Is there anything else? Nope. That's the weather report.
Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use. Arc version 0.3.0, VTXO tree signing, simplified onboarding process. This has been released. By the way, Arc is a layer 2 protocol designed to scale Bitcoin transactions. Quote, we're pleased to announce the release of ARC version 0.3.0. This update introduces several security, efficiency, and functionality improvements, continuing our ongoing efforts to refine and enhance the Arc ecosystem, announced the project. Quote, to start using Arc version 0.3.0, update your installations and check out our updated documentation. So what's new?
VTXO tree signing. There's an entirely new onboarding process. They've added extended functionalities like an enhanced client SDK, reversible policy for pending VTXOs, chain offline payments, and Bitcoin wallet restoration for covenantless ASPs. Efficiency improvements include dynamic fee and dust amount handling, as long with improved testing. And then finally, better developer experiences with the Arc SDK and something well, they an API renaming. And they say, we've renamed several APIs to be more production oriented, improving clarity and consistency across the platform. Now, Arc, like I said, this is a layer 2. It's sort of like lightning, except it seeks to provide a way to do things like lightning does, but without having to immediately realize that you have no incoming or outgoing liquidity to take part of the of the lightning network. And that, yes, I understand.
That is a sore point. It rubs people the wrong way that they can't just leap into Lightning and start doing stuff. Right? You've got to get liquidity both on the inside as well as the outgoing side. And that's hard to do. It's I'm I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. It's hard to do because you need to find channel partners. Physically, it's easy to open a channel with somebody, but can I mean, and you can have all the outgoing liquidity you want? Shit. You can you can open a a lightning channel to my lightning node named go red raiders. You can find that on, well, on your basic, you know, happy, friendly neighborhood lightning network lookup, whatever that is. I mean, are it's ARCEM?
I don't know if ARCEM does lightning or not but there's like there's one that I'm in particular that I used to use to find it and oh, AMBOSS, a m b o s s. If you go to AMBOSS, just look for, you know, just Google or DuckDuckGo Amboss and Lightning Network and you'll get to the website. Go in there and look for Go Red Raiders. You can open up a 1,000,000 sat channel with me if you want. It's not I mean, but what's gonna happen is all you get is outgoing liquidity. Nobody can send you a dime. Not until, like, you know, there's a several of your sats have been basically like, you've sent several of your sats or somebody else's somehow or another, you know, well, nobody else is using your node because you've only got that one channel open with me. I might send you, you know, some sats back. But if I don't see if I don't see it or if I'm busy, I'm not gonna worry about it. So after a while, you might have sent enough sats to my node where you start getting other people that are connected to my node to see your node and then send you sats. But, honestly, it's a pain in the ass.
So, ARC was designed so that you had immediately incoming and outgoing liquidity through various mechanisms that the ARC protocol suggests. Okay? That's getting a little bit too deep in the weeds, but it's like Lightning Network. But it wants to solve the incoming and outgoing liquidity problem upon your immediate, you know, installation of the ARC protocol. That's the difference. Now on to Open Sats, they have issued their 2nd wave of education grants. Not Noster grants, not Bitcoin grants, but education grants. So they say we are pleased to announce the latest round of grants aimed at supporting educational projects that are enhancing the understanding and adoption of bitcoin worldwide, announced the organization.
OpenSats educational initiative is dedicated to projects advancing Bitcoin education fostering innovation and promoting financial inclusion through open source resources, workshops and community events. In addition to these grants, we are also proud to have supported the Tokyo Lightning Network Summit 2024, which played a role in fostering collaboration and innovation within the Bitcoin Lightning Network ecosystem, as was stated in a blog post. So the grantees include Bitcoin Jungle, Bitcoin Indonesia, Deciphering Bitcoin, BOB Spaces Residency Cohort number 3, SATC's Pocket Guides, Africa Free Routing.
So those are those 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. They did 6 grants all about education, And I am thankful for the guys over there at Open Sats for continuing to, basically, put the money where their mouth is. Ocean has unveiled a decentralized alternative template for universal mining, also known as Datum. Now this is similar to Stratumv2, and datum is designed to decentralize block construction by empowering miners to create their own block templates via their own bitcoin node. Users can mine on pools that offer datum support or solo mine without needing a third party to set up a server for them.
Ocean announced the launch of datum. That's the decentralized alternative templates for universal mining. And the launch of Datum is a pivotal moment for the Bitcoin mining community. We're moving block creation back to the individual miners just as it was intended in the original white paper. With Datum, we're ensuring that the security and decentralization of the Bitcoin network safeguarding its future, said Luc Dash junior, cofounder of Ocean. The launch of DATEM is motivated by concerns of large mining pools controlling over 50% of Bitcoin's hash rate. Sorry. My cat's about to do something stupid, so I need to stop her right now.
Thus, increasing the risk of miner centralization and the potential for transaction censorship. Datum aims to decentralize block construction and prevent 51% attacks and keep Bitcoin network free and open. Datum is a leap forward in decentralized mining, making true mining available for everyone with as little friction as possible. Okay. Well, that's always nice. Where were we? Oh, the code base is written in c. It is extremely lightweight and portable, so it can easily run alongside a Bitcoin full node, said Jason Hughes, VP of engineering at Ocean and author of the Datum code base. Datum is currently in closed beta testing. Interested parties can contact Ocean for information about joining the exclusive beta or check back on October 18th for information about the upcoming public beta release. And if you want to, contact Ocean, the email for that is datum, [email protected].
That's [email protected]. And last on the list is Live Wallet version 0.9.0. I've never heard of Live Wallet before, but it offers Windows and Linux Red Hat builds, apparently. Live Wallet is a desktop app that helps users understand the current and future fee burden of their UTXOs. Available on Linux, macOS, as well as Windows. Let's see. Okay. And all it really says is what's new. Builds for Linux Red Hat distributions. There's builds for Windows and then there's bug fixes. Now, like I said, I've never heard of Live Wallet. I don't know how it works. But if for whatever reason you are a Live Wallet user or know someone who is, you might wanna tell them that version 0.9.0 is out and so am I. 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.
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 9:26 am Pacific Daylight Time. It's the last day of September.
Woo! Kissing September goodbye in 2024. This is episode 963 of Bitcoin and might be a little bit more of a shorter show today. Not honestly, there's not a whole lot going on, of course, except for the stair stepping down of the Bitcoin price. We'll get into that. There seems to be at least some conjecture as to what occurred last night. Something to do with Japan. And we got a couple of other things going on. We've got some, OpenSats things going on. We got Ocean Mining is in the news. We've got something that I've never heard of before. We'll we'll get into that. Live Wallet or something like that. And ARC.
I'm specifically interested in ARC. And there is news about ARC. And if you don't know what Ark is, you'll find out. But, you know, just to whet your appetite, it's another layer 2, like a full blown layer 2 for Bitcoin that rides on top of the consensus layer. Very much like, the lightning network, only it seeks to solve a different kind of issue, and we'll get into all of that. But first, let's get your daily hit of hopium out of decryp.c0. Mertza Merchant is writing this one. Bitcoin ETFs pulled in yet another $1,000,000,000 last week. That's billion with a b. Bitcoin Spot ETFs have attracted over $1,000,000,000 in net inflows in the past 1 week, its highest since last July.
An expert said it's evidence that institutional investors have become increasingly receptive to digital assets. The surge in investment comes as Bitcoin's price lingers around the $64,000 mark despite a slight dip in early Monday trading. BlackRock's Ethereum led with an inflow of $94,900,000 followed by Fidelity's Ethereum. Oh, god. We're talk why are they talking about Ethereum? I'm just gonna skip over all the Ethereum crap because that's bullshit. Alright. So the robust inflows into Bitcoin ETFs have not gone unnoticed by industry experts. Avinash Shikhar, co founder and CEO of Pi42, an Indian crypto derivatives platform, told Decrypt that the surge in net inflows for spot Bitcoin ETFs reflect a strong resurgence in investor confidence, particularly following the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut.
Shikhar also noted that the renewed interest in other ETFs recorded their 2nd best week since launch. The trends that we are observing indicate that the market is increasingly receptive to digital assets suggesting promising opportunities for bitcoin. The influx of capital into bitcoin based financial products apparently indicates a growing confidence in the cryptocurrency market amid macroeconomic developments, particularly in, you guessed it, Japan, which is planning to review its cryptocurrency regulations. And that could lead to reduced taxes on digital assets and potentially facilitate the launch of a domestic fund that invests in tokens according to a Bloomberg report. Now, if you're thinking that's what I was talking about when I was talking about Japan, that ain't it. That's a whole other piece of news. But as of early morning Monday, European hours.
Bitcoin was trading at 63.80, down approximately 2.8% from previous levels. And then shitcoin number 1 was also down as well. But who cares? Data from crypto asset manager, Coinshares, further supports the bullish sentiment. Cause the firm reported that digital asset investment products saw the 3rd consecutive week of inflows totaling $1,200,000,000 This trend is attributed to expectations of dovish monetary policy in the United States and positive price momentum with total assets under management rising by 6.2% this week. Okay. So listen up, guys. Here at about in a little over an hour from me speaking right now, Jerome Powell is going to give a speech, and he's going to basically it's going to be the minutes essentially for, for the Federal Reserve.
And we generally speaking, we always know what the Fed did the day that they actually raise or lower or keep rates neutral. But we have to wait a couple of weeks before we actually hear the rest of the story. And we don't know what the rest of the story is until Jerome Powell starts, you know, actually talking, which he will do here in a little over an hour. That is where a lot of people like, what is he wearing? What color? Seriously, I'm not lying. Like, what color suit is he wearing? What color tie is he wearing? What is his facial expressions? What are his hand expressions?
What is the tone of voice that he's using? And clearly, what is he actually saying. And what they're doing is they're trying to measure is that they're gonna continue to be dovish? Are they gonna remain neutral? Are they gonna go, you know, are they gonna go hardcore? Nobody knows until Jerome Powell starts talking. And within minutes after Jerome Powell talks, you will see a slew of stories. You will see the price of Bitcoin and the general markets react. Nobody knows what's going on until Jerome Powell actually sits up there and speaks, Which, in my opinion, is entirely too much power for one single person to have. Now, let's get into a little bit more about this Japan situation.
So you might be wondering, what the hell happened last night? Why did we start going down in price? I mean, we were sitting at a cool 65,500 and now we're chilling out at 63,500. So, you know, $2,000 just wiped off the books of Bitcoin price and it started last night. So what happened? Maybe Steven Alfer from CoinDesk will help us out here because he says Bitcoin tumbling back below 64 ks as a surprise Japan prime minister choice triggers a 5% plunge in the Nikke. And that's their stock exchange or whatever. After a quick, roughly 14% run higher following the US Federal Reserve's 50 basis point rate cut nearly 2 weeks ago, conditions seemed ripe for something to set off a sizable sell off in Bitcoin and the selection of a new prime minister in Japan over the weekend appears to be the trigger. Oh, joy.
It's a surprise choice. That country's ruling party selected Shigeru Ishiba to be its next prime minister. Without getting too much into the inside of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, it's commonly believed that Ishiba is supportive of the Bank of Japan's plan to return monetary policy to normalcy. That means higher interest rates. And that I'm pausing here, okay? This isn't what they're saying, but remember, higher interest rates is what we got. You know, coming in coming into August of this last year, Japan did that. And when they did that, they triggered a wave of sell offs for everything from Bitcoin to general equity markets because people needed to cover their yen carry trades.
And if you don't think that shit won't happen again, then you're fooling yourself. It just depends on whenever these people picked up their loan from the Bank of Japan in yen to buy whatever asset that they were gonna buy. Right? So, if they go higher, expect more sell offs in other markets. We're not out of the woods yet. And I don't think we're ever going to be as long as people continue to attach the price of Bitcoin with what the legacy markets are doing. It's just not it's just not that asset but we're treating it that way so just anyway just be prepared alright be prepared following his selection as prime minister ishiba called for snap elections to be held in late October.
Recall, it was the BOJ's very modest rate hike in July, oh, here we go, that caused a violent unwind in the so called yen carry trade and subsequent global panic in financial markets, sending Bitcoin plunging from about 70 k to below 50 k in the space of just a few days. The selling was so ugly that the BOJ had to send out a former official to try and calm the markets by saying the bank wasn't going to hike rates again in 2024. Well, the selection of a Shiba over the weekend triggered another rise in the yen and a quick 5% decline in Japan's Nikkei stock average or Nikkei, with the selling apparently spreading to Bitcoin, which quickly fell from about 66,000 to as low as 63300 and then bounced back to 638100.
And now it's backed down again to 636 just so you keep an if you keep an score. European stocks are lower by roughly 1%. Prior to the weekend action, Bitcoin had been enjoying a strong bull run since the Fed slashed its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points in mid September. Helping the move was China launching its own wave of monetary and fiscal stimulus to help boost that country's economy and markets. After enjoying its best week in more than a decade, the Shanghai Composite soared another 8% on Monday. A number of indicators late last week pointed to overbought conditions and among them said CoinDesk analyst James Van Straten perpetual funding rates for Bitcoin futures Van Straten noted that they've risen to levels near those seen just prior to the late July and last August sell offs.
This week brings the start of a new month. And with a number of key economic reports and central bank talk, Later on Monday, Fed chair Jerome Powell could comment on the on the economic and monetary policy outlook in a speech at the annual meeting for the National Association For Business Economics. Tuesday Thursday, we'll see US manufacturing and service sector reports from the Institute of Supply Management or the ISM. And the main event will be on Friday with the September jobs report, which most likely will be revised down 2 months after they released it. So whatever number they give us, don't believe it. Don't trust them. They're probably lying. Anyway, the data could go a long way in influencing the Fed rate decision at its next policy meeting in early November.
At the moment, at the moment, ladies and gentlemen, markets are giving about a 2 and 3 chance of a 25 basis point Fed rate cut according to the CME Fed watch. It was the Fed somewhat surprisingly moving 50 instead of 25 points at its September meeting which triggered this most recent bull move. A sizable change in the November rate cut odds might again affect the price path. Okay. So, under also understand that the, next Fed decision being in in early November is actually right after the presidential election. So it's gonna be fireworks all the way around. You got a new prime minister in Japan who might start raising interest rates over there at their central bank and and and all of a sudden, more yen carry trades are in serious jeopardy.
Right? It's gonna that that could really suck. I don't think Japan really has the ability to do anything other than raise their interest rates. But what are we gonna do? What's the Federal Reserve gonna do? What's my gut feeling? My gut feeling is that they keep the rates the same. That against all odds, I'm the lone dude out there saying that they ain't gonna do nothing. Why would I say that? Well, because they cut 50 and then we started getting jobs and, you know, economic information in like PCI and CME or whatever. All these kinds of new reports started coming out that was saying that inflation was not not really under control.
And the whole impetus of the Fed cutting rates as much as they did. Even even just cutting in 25 let's pretend they just cut them 25 basis points, not 50. They did that because they were telling us, lo and behold, they've got inflation, then we've solved the problem. Well, then they made the cut, but instead of 25, they actually did do 50. And then we started getting other reports out that said that no, no, no, no, no, not really. So that's why I'm thinking that we are certainly not going to see a 50 basis point cut in November. Right?
I honestly don't believe we're going to see any cuts come November. What's gonna be funky as hell though is what Japan does, when they do it, and how that relates to the timing of the United States presidential elections. Because that thing all by itself, all other things being equal, is gonna be a shit show. It's gonna be a shit show. My God Almighty. But let's get back to a little bit about a Bitcoin. Crypto mining rig sales, are they securities? Not so fast, according to lawyers. Decrypt Liz Napolitano is writing this one. A federal judge denied a crypto firm's request last week to dismiss an SEC complaint alleging that the sale of its purported mining hardware to customers constituted an investment contract.
And while the move spurred some speculation on social media over the implications for such hardware, legal analysts say that there's no immediate reason for concern. According to the lawsuit filed March of 2023 in the US District Court for the District of Utah, Green United allegedly defrauded investors of $18,000,000 by selling them quote green boxes that failed to mine digital tokens called green as promised. That's because the, god forbid, I hate to do this to y'all, but the Ethereum based tokens couldn't actually be mined, the suit claims. The ongoing case forms federal regulators' latest attempt to eradicate garden variety fraud within the crypto industry and beyond.
Quote, they gave people money and they wanted to profit off of it. Said Ishmael Green, a partner at law firm Diaz Roos. This is a classic fraud case. It's not even real. It's not even a real case. It's ridiculous. Although, the lawsuit is another step in the grand scheme of the US crypto policy and the SEC's approach to regulation by enforcement. Another lawyer argued to decrypt that it's not as consequential to the future of cryptocurrency mining in general as the agency's litigation against Coinbase or Ripple. All of these cases are important, but this one far less important, said Terrence Yang, strategic advisor at Swan Bitcoin.
Given that Green United's motion to dismiss the case has been denied, the lawsuit will go on to be heard in a federal court. And in its complaint, the SEC alleges the Green United deposited green tokens into investors' account to create the appearance of a successful mining operation despite the fact that green tokens, an ethereum based ERC20 token, could not be mined and did not come from mining related activities at all. The SEC also alleges that Green has no realizable value contrary to representations made by Green United at the time, of its hardware sales anyway.
Green United has denied those allegations in a separate legal filing. Ishmael Greene, the Diaz Roos reporter told Decrypt that the SEC's case is unlikely to have any implications for typical mining hardware, which users operate to support networks and try to generate crypto rewards like on Bitcoin. In this specific case, the SEC is alleging that mining wasn't actually happening on the boxes sold to users. It's fine so long as the mining rigs are sold with the understanding that the end user will be doing the mining, he based on his understanding of the case. Quote, in Green United, the mining rig was sold with an agreement that stated Green United would control and run the system, he added.
The lawsuit also contains allegations that Green United's so called mining equipment comprise a securities investment. That means the case could potentially have implications for hosted mining services, which Green United purported to offer. Okay. Even though that the SEC didn't explicitly mention hosted mining in its complaint. In a posted statement, however, Green United attempted to paint the SEC's case as a mischaracterization of what was actually happening, writing that SEC lawyers try to change the law by classifying hosted mining as a security, a practice performed by numerous public companies.
Green United also said that offered refunds to buyers, but that only a very small minority of node owners requested said refund. Neither the SEC nor Green United responded to a request for comment. And while the SEC and Green United are still locking horns about the legitimacy of the crypto firm's business and the classification of its mining equipment, the judge overseeing the case is far from making any determinations. Quote, the recent ruling makes a much more limited determination. End quote. According to Jacoby, the judge's rejection of Green United's motion to dismiss the case isn't a ruling in favor of the SEC's arguments, but rather a declaration that he simply intends to hear the case instead of throwing it out.
Green United's successful or unsuccessful attempt to dismiss the case isn't much of a surprise as firms commonly request dismissals according to the lawyers that spoke to decrypt. And that's because filing such a request typically has benefits for defendants regardless of whether or not they have actually violated federal securities laws. Filing to dismiss a case is almost like getting 2 bites at the apple for doing a bare minimum, Greene told decrypt. The defense receives additional time, and they also get to come up with additional legal theories as to why they're innocent. Alright. Let's go back up here.
Where oh, I had it marked. Hold on. Do do do do do do do do do do. Okay. The SEC lawyers try to change the law by classifying a hosted mining as a security, a practice performed by numerous public companies. Therein is the meat of the matter that is kind of freaking a whole bunch of people out. So if you're freaking out that all of a sudden the SEC is gonna be able to declare Bitcoin mining as a security, no. That's not what this is. Now that's not to say that they couldn't successfully, the SEC being they, that they couldn't successfully bring a lawsuit for of securities fraud against a Bitcoin mining company if they're selling their mining in a way that violates the Howey test or rather doesn't violate it, passes the Howey test. And the Howey test is how we tell whether or not something is a security.
If you pass the Howey test with flying colors, that's not good. That means you're a security. That's what passing the Howey test means. So if I were to come up to you and say, hey, I've got hosted Bitcoin mining. I'm gonna sell you a mining contract. And you're so basically, you're gonna give us the money to buy a few miners, but we're gonna be figuring out which miners to buy. We're gonna be the ones that are actually hosting said mining gear and supplying it electricity. And we're gonna be mining Bitcoin on your behalf because you want to do this because we told you that we would be able to make you a profit.
Now that's a security contract. I'm sorry, plain and simple. But if I go up to Bitmain and say I would like to buy a miner, please. They say that's $3,000 for this miner that you want. Give me the money. I say, okay. And I give them the money, and then they put a miner that I bought in a box and they send it to me and say, Sayonara, that is the completion of our deal. Well, then all they've done there, there's no promises of anything. There's no promises that they would even be able to plug it in for me. There's no promises that I'm gonna make any money whatsoever. They simply sold me a piece of hardware, not a security contract.
So, there's 2 flavors of mining here. And I guarantee you that somebody somewhere is selling Bitcoin mining services, but they're doing it in a contractual way with the offer or, well, with the promise that they're going to produce a profit with the management of third parties. That is a security and the SEC is going to come down hard on those people. But just because it's bitcoin mining, I don't want anybody freaking out because you have to do it in that particular way for for bitcoin mining to become a mining contract that is deemed a security under SEC laws. So just be aware that just because this and these guys aren't even Bitcoin mining. A, they're trying to mine a shit coin. B, it doesn't even work. This is just flat fraud.
I mean, they said, hey, we're gonna do this for you and we're gonna bind this this ERC 20 token. And it didn't even work. And if it turns out that the SEC's allegations are true, that they were just dumping this green coin bullshit into these guys' accounts to make it look like they were actually successfully mining this green token, well, then people are gonna go to jail. I'm sorry, but you you done screwed up on that one. Now, man pleads guilty, speaking of, you know, going jail, man pleads guilty to operating illegal crypto ATMs in the first of its kind UK conviction.
And this is out of the block written by James Hunt. Alumaid Asunokoya, I can't pronounce the name, pleaded guilty to 5 offenses connected with illegal crypto ATMs in the UK at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday. And in a press release, the country's financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, said that it is the 1st UK conviction for offenses related to the operation of crypto ATMs. He illegally operated at least 11 crypto ATMs in the country processing more than £2,600,000 or $3,500,000 between December of 2021 September of 2023 with profit margins between 10 60% on every transaction.
Oh my god. According to the f e FCA. Now first acting as a director of Gidiplus Limited, then as a sole practitioner, this particular person whose name I cannot pronounce continued to grow his crypto ATM network in local convenience shops across the UK despite the FCA refusing his registration back in 2021. The regulator said he completed no customer due diligence checks with the court hearing evidence that those committing money laundering or tax evasion were likely among the users of the machines. Of course, because we're all money launderers. The court also heard that this gentleman used a false alias in an attempt to evade the FCA's rules. On September 10th, he was charged with 2 offenses of operating crypto ATMs without FCA registration, facing a maximum sentence of up to 2 years in prison or a fine or both. He faces a further 2 offenses related to forgery and counterfeiting with a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, a fine or both.
He is also charged with one count of possession of criminal property which was $26,000 US in cash relating to the suspected proceeds of said crypto ATM network. The maximum sentence of which is up to 14 years in prison, a fine, or both. Sentencing will take place at London Southwark Crown Court at a debt date yet to be determined. So, the very first time that somebody's gonna go to jail for illegally operating crypto ATMs in a country and he was able to do it for 2 straight years with profit margins of 10 to 60%. Wow.
I mean, wow. Holy shit. Speaking of numbers, let's run some. CNBC Futures and Commodities looks to me like oil is having a dead decent decent day, at least a decent morning for West Texas Intermediate. 0.84 percent to the upside, but still at $68.75. Brent Norsee tagging downward $71.88 per barrel. Natural gas is down a 3rd to $2.89 per 1,000. Gasoline is up 1.38%, just under $2 per gallon. All of your shiny metal rocks are not having a good day. Gold is down a 3rd, silver is down a point, Platinum is down 3 and a quarter points. Copper is down 1 and a quarter while palladium is down 2 and a third.
Biggest winner in ag today is looks to be, oh, corn. Oh, the corn wins. 1.44% to the upside. Biggest loser is chocolate, a whopping 6.7% to the downside. Holy smokes. Live cattle up 0.16, but lean hogs down a 5th of a point. Feeder cattle down a quarter of a point. The Dow is down a quarter of a point. S and P is up but only sideways, while Nasdaq is down but only sideways. S and P Mini is up 0.04%. So everybody's waiting. Everybody is waiting for Jerome Powell to put his suit on and go stand at a podium and talk. And then we can figure out what to do with the financial future of the world. Wow. That's just a hell of a way to run a shit show, ain't it? $63,480. That's what you're gonna get for 1 Bitcoin.
$1,250,000,000,000 market cap, and you can get 24 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your 1 Bitcoin of which there are 19,760,796.12 of. Fees have dropped just a little bit, 0.05 BTC in fees on average per block. And there are 100 blocks carrying a 166,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 3, count them, 1 to 3 satoshis per v byte. And low priority is gonna get you in at the same, 3 satoshis per v byte. Mining is chilling out at 613.2 exahashes per second. So, you know, there's that. Now from Goodbye FCC, Hello SEC, Bitcoin and episode was it 962?
Yeah. And God's death with 537 says, thank you, sir. Yes. Fuck them. Fuck them to death. I hear you, pal. Let's see. What else we got? Pies to play with 420. Thank you, sir. Very important information. Thank you. User 115-56842 with 500 says, Axelrod says, sold week of shows. Cheers. Not sure what that means, but that's probably because I've only got 4 brain cells left. And Noster Gang said be like water. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I agree. Be like water. Let's see. Is there anything else? Nope. That's the weather report.
Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use. Arc version 0.3.0, VTXO tree signing, simplified onboarding process. This has been released. By the way, Arc is a layer 2 protocol designed to scale Bitcoin transactions. Quote, we're pleased to announce the release of ARC version 0.3.0. This update introduces several security, efficiency, and functionality improvements, continuing our ongoing efforts to refine and enhance the Arc ecosystem, announced the project. Quote, to start using Arc version 0.3.0, update your installations and check out our updated documentation. So what's new?
VTXO tree signing. There's an entirely new onboarding process. They've added extended functionalities like an enhanced client SDK, reversible policy for pending VTXOs, chain offline payments, and Bitcoin wallet restoration for covenantless ASPs. Efficiency improvements include dynamic fee and dust amount handling, as long with improved testing. And then finally, better developer experiences with the Arc SDK and something well, they an API renaming. And they say, we've renamed several APIs to be more production oriented, improving clarity and consistency across the platform. Now, Arc, like I said, this is a layer 2. It's sort of like lightning, except it seeks to provide a way to do things like lightning does, but without having to immediately realize that you have no incoming or outgoing liquidity to take part of the of the lightning network. And that, yes, I understand.
That is a sore point. It rubs people the wrong way that they can't just leap into Lightning and start doing stuff. Right? You've got to get liquidity both on the inside as well as the outgoing side. And that's hard to do. It's I'm I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. It's hard to do because you need to find channel partners. Physically, it's easy to open a channel with somebody, but can I mean, and you can have all the outgoing liquidity you want? Shit. You can you can open a a lightning channel to my lightning node named go red raiders. You can find that on, well, on your basic, you know, happy, friendly neighborhood lightning network lookup, whatever that is. I mean, are it's ARCEM?
I don't know if ARCEM does lightning or not but there's like there's one that I'm in particular that I used to use to find it and oh, AMBOSS, a m b o s s. If you go to AMBOSS, just look for, you know, just Google or DuckDuckGo Amboss and Lightning Network and you'll get to the website. Go in there and look for Go Red Raiders. You can open up a 1,000,000 sat channel with me if you want. It's not I mean, but what's gonna happen is all you get is outgoing liquidity. Nobody can send you a dime. Not until, like, you know, there's a several of your sats have been basically like, you've sent several of your sats or somebody else's somehow or another, you know, well, nobody else is using your node because you've only got that one channel open with me. I might send you, you know, some sats back. But if I don't see if I don't see it or if I'm busy, I'm not gonna worry about it. So after a while, you might have sent enough sats to my node where you start getting other people that are connected to my node to see your node and then send you sats. But, honestly, it's a pain in the ass.
So, ARC was designed so that you had immediately incoming and outgoing liquidity through various mechanisms that the ARC protocol suggests. Okay? That's getting a little bit too deep in the weeds, but it's like Lightning Network. But it wants to solve the incoming and outgoing liquidity problem upon your immediate, you know, installation of the ARC protocol. That's the difference. Now on to Open Sats, they have issued their 2nd wave of education grants. Not Noster grants, not Bitcoin grants, but education grants. So they say we are pleased to announce the latest round of grants aimed at supporting educational projects that are enhancing the understanding and adoption of bitcoin worldwide, announced the organization.
OpenSats educational initiative is dedicated to projects advancing Bitcoin education fostering innovation and promoting financial inclusion through open source resources, workshops and community events. In addition to these grants, we are also proud to have supported the Tokyo Lightning Network Summit 2024, which played a role in fostering collaboration and innovation within the Bitcoin Lightning Network ecosystem, as was stated in a blog post. So the grantees include Bitcoin Jungle, Bitcoin Indonesia, Deciphering Bitcoin, BOB Spaces Residency Cohort number 3, SATC's Pocket Guides, Africa Free Routing.
So those are those 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. They did 6 grants all about education, And I am thankful for the guys over there at Open Sats for continuing to, basically, put the money where their mouth is. Ocean has unveiled a decentralized alternative template for universal mining, also known as Datum. Now this is similar to Stratumv2, and datum is designed to decentralize block construction by empowering miners to create their own block templates via their own bitcoin node. Users can mine on pools that offer datum support or solo mine without needing a third party to set up a server for them.
Ocean announced the launch of datum. That's the decentralized alternative templates for universal mining. And the launch of Datum is a pivotal moment for the Bitcoin mining community. We're moving block creation back to the individual miners just as it was intended in the original white paper. With Datum, we're ensuring that the security and decentralization of the Bitcoin network safeguarding its future, said Luc Dash junior, cofounder of Ocean. The launch of DATEM is motivated by concerns of large mining pools controlling over 50% of Bitcoin's hash rate. Sorry. My cat's about to do something stupid, so I need to stop her right now.
Thus, increasing the risk of miner centralization and the potential for transaction censorship. Datum aims to decentralize block construction and prevent 51% attacks and keep Bitcoin network free and open. Datum is a leap forward in decentralized mining, making true mining available for everyone with as little friction as possible. Okay. Well, that's always nice. Where were we? Oh, the code base is written in c. It is extremely lightweight and portable, so it can easily run alongside a Bitcoin full node, said Jason Hughes, VP of engineering at Ocean and author of the Datum code base. Datum is currently in closed beta testing. Interested parties can contact Ocean for information about joining the exclusive beta or check back on October 18th for information about the upcoming public beta release. And if you want to, contact Ocean, the email for that is datum, [email protected].
That's [email protected]. And last on the list is Live Wallet version 0.9.0. I've never heard of Live Wallet before, but it offers Windows and Linux Red Hat builds, apparently. Live Wallet is a desktop app that helps users understand the current and future fee burden of their UTXOs. Available on Linux, macOS, as well as Windows. Let's see. Okay. And all it really says is what's new. Builds for Linux Red Hat distributions. There's builds for Windows and then there's bug fixes. Now, like I said, I've never heard of Live Wallet. I don't know how it works. But if for whatever reason you are a Live Wallet user or know someone who is, you might wanna tell them that version 0.9.0 is out and so am I. 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.
Bitcoin Price and Market Updates
Institutional Investments in Bitcoin ETFs
Global Economic Indicators and Bitcoin
Federal Reserve's Future Rate Decisions
