Join me today for Episode 973 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
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Articles:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/politics/kamala-harris-proves-shes-the-worst-candidate-for-bitcoin-ownership-and-adoption
https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-spot-bitcoin-etfs-556m-inflows-biggest-day-since-june
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/10/15/cash-margined-bitcoin-futures-are-more-popular-than-ever-as-open-interest-reaches-new-highs/
https://www.theblock.co/post/321074/blockstream-funding-layer-2-mining-bitcoin-treasury
https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20241010_1b5ee10e-cf5b-420e-9e41-43ccd9e515e5_announcement_en.pdf
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/fountain-v1-1-5/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/zeus-v0-9-1/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/simplex-chat-v6-1-0/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/ldk-v0-0-125/
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Topics for today:
- Kamala Insults Black Men, Forgets Black Women Exist
- $556 Million BTC ETF Inflows Yesterday
- Blockstream Modifies MSTR's BTC Playbook
- MtGOX Delays Rehabilitation For One Year
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
The King Ranch Donation Pages:
https://www.ruralamericainaction.com/fundraising/save-king-ranch-and-agriculture-in-washington
https://www.givesendgo.com/Kingranch
Articles:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/politics/kamala-harris-proves-shes-the-worst-candidate-for-bitcoin-ownership-and-adoption
https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-spot-bitcoin-etfs-556m-inflows-biggest-day-since-june
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/10/15/cash-margined-bitcoin-futures-are-more-popular-than-ever-as-open-interest-reaches-new-highs/
https://www.theblock.co/post/321074/blockstream-funding-layer-2-mining-bitcoin-treasury
- https://www.cnbc.com/futures-and-commodities/
- https://dashboard.clarkmoody.com/
- https://mempool.space/
- https://fountain.fm/show/eK5XaSb3UaLRavU3lYrI
- https://geyser.fund/project/thebitcoinandpodcast
https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20241010_1b5ee10e-cf5b-420e-9e41-43ccd9e515e5_announcement_en.pdf
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/fountain-v1-1-5/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/zeus-v0-9-1/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/simplex-chat-v6-1-0/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/ldk-v0-0-125/
Find the Bitcoin And Podcast on every podcast app here:
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Find the Bitcoin And Podcast on every podcast app here:
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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 9:0:8 AM Pacific Daylight Time. It's the 15th day of October 2024.
This is episode 973 of Bitcoin and let's just jump in. Let's just do it. Let's get our feet wet and figure out if I was right in my estimation of Kamala Harris and pandering. And maybe I'm not right, but at least I might get some confirmation here from Nicholas Hoffman out of Bitcoin Magazine. Kamala Harris just proved she is the worst candidate for Bitcoin. Kamala Harris announced today she is quote, supporting a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and other digital assets so that black men who invest in and own these assets are protected.
Oh, they need protection. Nope. That's not clickbait. Harris's first specific crypto policy is here, and it's race based. Pausing to note confirmation number 1. I said it yesterday. This is racist. It's based on the color of people's skin. By definition, racist. Continuing, as a Bitcoiner, I have to say this is a huge misstep and it shows Harris in no way understands Bitcoin, a network where everyone already has equal access regardless of race, color, and creed. Harris and the Democrats have for years touted themselves as anti racist while labeling their opponents and anyone else who challenges them as a racist.
Here, Kamala is extending that policy to crypto, playing favoritism with one specific demographic. Let's let's just imagine. Trump had come out with an agenda stating he will work on policy that will benefit white people in the crypto industry. The media would be in an uproar about it, but but but but but unlike Harris, Trump is not favoring one race of people over everyone else. He is making pro bitcoin policies that are for all Americans. On this basis alone, Trump's approach is undoubtedly far better for Bitcoin than the one Harris has proposed. He actually gives specific details on what exactly he would do to foster innovation within the industry if elected. And it explains how these policies benefit everyone.
This new rhetoric by Harris appears to be nothing more than just pandering for votes to one group of people, while likely losing votes from the others that she's excluded. Any voter telling themselves otherwise is lying to themselves, pausing to note. Confirmation number 2, pandering. That's what I said yesterday. This is 100% pandering, and it looks like Nicholas Hoffman agrees with that. Continuing on, let's ask ourselves this. Do we think that Harris's policies will make it easier for black Americans to access and owed Bitcoin? Or or do we think that her admission will make it more difficult?
Or hit her administration, not admission. Sorry. Do we think that her administration will make it more difficult? If more hurdles are placed on black Bitcoin buyers, I, for one, can't imagine anything worse. Bitcoin is an open source protocol open to anyone in the world. It doesn't care what race you are, anyone can use it. This policy is a slap in the face to all American Bitcoiners, and Bitcoin voters should head to the polls in 3 weeks to make sure she is not elected as president. Okay, well, a little bit clearly pro, you know, a little more pro Trump, but it is pandering. She is being racist.
But what's worse is that the more that I thought about this, the more inane saying something like we're going to make it easier and we're going to protect black Americans who own and custody Bitcoin. It is a Nicholas is 100% correct here. It is an open protocol. Anyone can already use it. Do you have cash app on your phone? Do you have strike on your phone? Do you have a bank account? Do you have access to other Bitcoiners who would be willing to sell you some of their Bitcoin for a handful of cash directly without any intermediaries meeting at a bar and doing it? This is done. This is done all over the place. This was this was done before we had things like Cash App and Strike and all manner of, you know, exchanges. It was the honestly, it was one of the only ways you could actually buy Bitcoin other than Mt. Gox and well we'll get into the Mt. Gox thing here in a little bit I've got some I've got some news on that somewhere somewhere around here where is that thing hold on I got to make sure that I've got it Yes, I do have the Mt. Gox story. We are gonna get into that. What I don't understand, like, you could have said anything. We're gonna protect Native Americans.
We're gonna protect Chinese Americans. What is it about centering on a particular race that enamors these people so much? How is it not automatically construed within their own party as being clearly racist and nothing but racist. See, I I don't get this. When somebody says that you can make fun of white people because it's not reverse racism, that there's no such thing as racism when it comes to berating white people, how is that not racism? It is racism. That that that's the thing. It's a complete smokescreen and it's disgusting.
I just I hate watching these people fall down the stairs that they've worked so hard to climb up. It's like grandma, oh, we were almost at the top of the step. You you almost made it. You were and you were doing it under your own power. You were getting up those steps. But grandma, at the very top of the stairs decides, she's done. And she just falls and rolls back down the stairs. Hopefully, grandma's okay. But, grandma Harris at this point, I don't I I don't know how what outcome this election is gonna be, but, if here's here's my estimation.
If she's within 5 percentage points of Trump, there will be cheating and it will swing Harris's way. That's the way that this is gonna happen. If she is with if she is like on like 7 points under Trump in the polls, 8, I'll even give it 6. That there's no possible way that cheating would be effective in the medium to long term. It would be found out at a scale way worse because everybody is gonna be watching this one. Every everybody. There's gonna be so many eyes on the polling places and election results and numbers. Of course, not in the mainstream media. It's gonna be actual, you know, real human beings on the ground that are doing it.
But like I said, if it's 5 points if it's a 5 point difference between Trump and Harris or under, expect cheating to actually be effective and maybe not caught. If it's 6 to 10%, and it won't be 10, it'll still it'll only be single digits, Then if they cheat and if they try to cheat and they say that she won, it's going to be a bloodbath. It's gonna be really, really ugly. Now US spot Bitcoin ETFs. Yes. We're we're gonna talk a little bit about them. Martin Young, Cointelegraph. The Bitcoin ETFs see a $556,000,000 inflow on their biggest day since June.
Wow. United States spot Bitcoin exchange traded funds saw their biggest one day inflow in over 4 months with more than half of a $1,000,000,000 in inflows. The 11 ETF saw aggregate net inflows of $555,900,000 yesterday, October 14th. Their largest daily net inflow since early June according to data from Farside Investors. The big day came as Bitcoin hit a 2 week high of $66,500 in late trading. ETF store president Nate Goraci called it a monster day for spot Bitcoin ETFs, adding that they were now approaching 20,000,000,000 with a b. $20,000,000,000 of net inflows over the past 10 months.
Quote, simply ridiculous and blows away every pre launch demand estimate, he said in an October 15th Twitter post, quote, this is not degenerate retail. It's advisors and institutional investors continuing to slowly adopt, end quote. The Fidelity wise Bitcoin Origin Fund was the leader. Not not BlackRock. No. No. No. It was Fidelity wise Bitcoin Origin Fund leading the pack with an inflow of $239,300,000 That was its highest since June 4th. The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF had a little over $100,000,000 while BlackRock's Ishares Bitcoin Trust saw inflows of a $79,600,000 Arc shares, had inflows of just under 70. And the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust saw its first inflow for October at 37,800,000, its highest since May.
In an October 14th Twitter post, Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas compared Bitcoin ETFs to gold based products noting that since the January launch of the BTC funds, the asset has hit an all time high not once not twice not 3 times and not 4 but 5 times. Meanwhile, gold has hit record highs 30 times this year. But gold ETFs have only seen $1,400,000,000 in net inflows compared to the more than $19,000,000,000 for Bitcoin ETFs, Balchuna said. Still, shitcoin number 1 funds were not enjoying the same momentum with 0 net flows for Bitwise, VanEck, Franklin, and Grayscale, and minor flows for Fidelity and Invesco.
The BlackRock iShares shitcoin number 1 trust had an inflow of $14,300,000 bringing the total to $17,000,000. My god. The Ethereum ETF is just not doing well at all. Can't imagine why. Maybe it's the continual shifting of their monetary policy because Vitalik woke up with a headache, whatever. Okay. So cash margined Bitcoin futures. Now I see this all the time. Now on Noster and I used to see it on Twitter. We keep seeing these tweets that record high open interest is occurring at any given day. Alright? Like, just like like 4 or 5 months ago. It's like, oh my god. Open interest hit, I don't know, whatever, 1,000,000 or $1,000,000,000 on and then there's always an accompanying charge.
Oh, the open interest. And then always, always, there's always a post or a reply to whatever whoever said that. If anybody says open interest on Bitcoin hits an all time high, you can bet your bottom dollar the first post or the first reply to that is a rocket ship or a meme of a rocket taken off into space or some bullshit like that. Please stop doing that because that's not what open interest means. Cash margin Bitcoin futures are more popular than ever as open interest reaches yet new highs coin desk and James Van Stratton I want to try to explain this to you Cash margin Bitcoin future contracts are more popular than ever.
Open interest in cash margin futures hit an all time high of 384,000 BTC. That's about $25,500,000,000 on Monday, surpassing the November 2022 peak of 376,000 BTC when Bitcoin traded near $16,000 a coin, according to data source Glassnode. The CME futures accounted for 40% of the cash margin tally on Monday. Glassnode's cash and crypto margin charts include standard future data excluding perpetuals from Binance, Bitfinex, BitMex, Bybit, CME, Derabit, Huobi, Kraken, and OKX. Cash Margined Open Interest has been steadily increasing for the last 2 years while open interest in crypto margin has steadily declined from 210,000 BTC to 87,000 now accounting for just 18.2 percent of the total open interest of 478,000 BTC Glassnode defines crypto margin as, quote, the total amount of futures contracts open interest that is margined in the native coin and not in United States dollars or some stable coin, end quote.
The firm defines cash margin as, quote, the total amount of futures contracts open interest that is margined in USD or USD pegged stable coins. Stable coins include USDT and BUSD at this time. Open interest refers this is the here we get into some some of the the definitions here. Open interest refers to the number of active or open futures contracts at any given time. An uptick in open interest is said to represent an inflow of money and preference for leveraged products. Open interest can be measured in native token terms and notional terms. The latter is influenced by the underlying asset's price and therefore can be misleading.
In cash margin contracts, the underlying collateral being used is stablecoins and or dollars which are more stable than tokens used as margin in the crypto collateralized futures. As such, cash margin contracts are relatively less vulnerable to forced liquidations and breed less volatility. Ultimately, this could provide a more sustainable bull run moving into 2025. Yeah. They always say that shit. I'll get to it here in a second. The CME's leadership in cash margin segment suggests increasing institutional activity in the derivatives market. Sophisticated investors, not you plebs, but no. No. No. Sophisticated investors might be using CME Futures to hedge their directional plays or or set up the market neutral basis trade.
In October of 2023, CME became the largest futures exchange for the very first time, capturing over 30% of the market share and overtaking Binance. This increase was most likely driven by traders pricing the expected debut of the US based spot ETFs, which went live in January. What does it all mean? And why am I bitching about it? Because open interest represents money flowing in to derivative products like futures contracts. It's not necessarily buying the underlying asset and holding it. It's making a bet on price.
And that can be a short contract or a long contract. And if if you're going long, hey, man, more power to you. That means that you've got some actual real belief. But open interest, when these people go, oh my god, open interest hit an all time high, that includes people that think it's going to fucking 0. Well, not 0, but they certainly are betting on a price dump, a small crash, or at least, you know, getting down to a point where they where their short contracts actually pay out for them. They're betting on demise. And then there's other people that are, you know, betting on the future of Bitcoin being something even more valuable than it already is, at least in USD terms.
So that's my problem. Whenever somebody says, Oh my God, open interest hit a new all time high. I get butterflies in my stomach and not in a good way. I get nervous because that means that people are not actually buying the underlying asset. It means they're just betting in a derivative fueled, aping in, degenerate casino kind of way. So that's why I have a problem when everybody's like, oh my god, it's open interest and it's an all time high. It doesn't mean anything other than that people are being degenerate. So just let please, please, when whenever you see those posts on on Twitter or, I don't know, LinkedIn or Doster or whatever, just think twice that it doesn't necessarily mean that things are good.
Right? It just means that there's there's more interest in the asset class, but the asset class includes derivatives like futures contracts and I don't know probably other derivatives on those futures contracts and bets on bets on bets on bets on bets. It's it's never it's casino gambling is never good for your health. Please don't gamble. Just buy the damn thing and hold it. Okay. So Blockstream is doing just that. They're buying the damn thing and holding it Or at least that's what it looks like. Let's find out more. James Hunt, the block.
Blockstream secures $210,000,000 to drive layer 2 growth and to expand its Bitcoin Treasury. Following the buzz around Blockstream and its co founder and CEO Adam Bak's appearance on the HBO documentary last week, the Bitcoin infrastructure developer announced on Tuesday that it had secured $210,000,000 via a convertible note financing round led by Folger Ventures. Let me just pause. Convertible note financing. Who does this sound like? It sounds like MicroStrategy. The fresh capital will be used to accelerate the adoption and development of Blockstream's Bitcoin layer 2 technologies, expand its mining operations in preparation for the new Bitcoin market cycle, and boost its Bitcoin Treasury, the firm said in a statement.
This latest fundraise represents a defining moment for Blockstream as we embark on a critical new phase of growth to further bridge the gap between Bitcoin and the wider world of finance, Bak said. Put a tie on that suit speak, brother. Blockstream's layer 2 solution include the liquid network, a federated Bitcoin side chain that can deploy multiple types of tokenized assets and core lightning and implementation of the lightning network designed to enable faster and cheaper Bitcoin transactions. Blockstream aims to capitalize on increasing interest in bitcoin as an asset class and broader tokenization potential in general to position liquid as the de facto infrastructure for tokenizing real world assets within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
The firm claims over $1,800,000,000 in assets, including stablecoins, tokenized bonds, and securities have been issued on liquid to date with over 3,844 BTC locked on chain. Crypto exchange Bitfinex tokenized securities offerings are an example of the products utilizing the platform. Another is Stoker's issuance of the MicroStrategy note, CMSTR, which is fully backed by MicroStrategy shares and can be traded peer to peer against Bitcoin on the liquid DEX sideswap. Last month, Blockstream also launched series 3 of its own BMN 2 secondurity token, which provides direct exposure to the firm's Bitcoin hash rate. Meanwhile, Blockstream also announced the addition of Michael Minkovich to its leadership team on Tuesday with the former product engineering lead at global IT service provider, Luxoft, taking on the role as chief operating officer.
Blockstream has a unique product portfolio and one of the best engineering teams building reliable bitcoin solutions, making it perfectly suited to lead the ongoing transformation of the fintech industry, Minkovich said following his appointment. Quote, we are especially excited to welcome Michael Minkovich as COO and grateful for the support of Folger Ventures whose combined expertise will be vital as we look to capitalize on new opportunities across the financial industry and other key sectors, Backsett. That's the end of the article and I really really really wish that they had dove deep into the statement that they were using convertible note financing.
So all I can do at this point is to conjecture that they are they have a kind of a well, they're they're not doing it looks to me like they're not doing exactly what MicroStrategy is doing. But then again, neither is similar scientific. And in a very real way, Meta Planet is doing just a, you know, a couple things a little bit different. So what this tells me is that while more and more companies are in fact adopting Michael Saylor's strategy book or playbook or whatever it was that you wanna call it. And it was that thing that he had a huge webinar, Michael Saylor did. It was for free and he invited all these CEO, chief investment officers from all these really huge companies around the world and he basically gave them exactly the instructions on how to leverage Bitcoin for their treasuries.
What I've seen is that every single company has a different take on Michael Strategies, Michael's strategy MicroStrategy's strategy right and that honestly that's good this is good I I they're not just they're not just taking what Michael gave them and just doing the exact same thing they're all operating just a hair differently. And what we're going to get out of that is several different experiments running concurrently that have basically the same kind of, variables involved, the same kind of underlying asset involved, but they're treating the way that they're doing it just a little bit differently. And this means that the outcomes of all these slightly different experiments will inform the next round of companies that are going to start doing this. They will have more options. The playbook is being expanded, in other words. But it's being expanded by people who are like, let's try this.
And then I guarantee they will report back that their reporting will be included in the next iteration of quote unquote the playbook. Now I don't mean that Michael Strata Michael strategy. I'm doing it again. That micro strategy is going to rewrite the actual playbook as a PDF and re redistribute it with this new information. No. This is now becoming part of the, I don't know, the business lore as to how to operate around Bitcoin. And it will just it'll just be its own thing. This is I think this is honestly good. Now, I agree that there's like the more institutionalized we get the more indifferent dangers come out of the woodwork for how we're going to continue to hold our Bitcoin.
But a Bitcoin is for enemy. B, you can't stop your enemies from actually using it. And you cannot stop your enemies from doing weird and possibly twisted things with it. It is what it is. And the minute that we accept that we just can't control what these people do with it is the minute that we understand that nobody else can control how we think about what we should do with Bitcoin. Let's run the numbers. West Texas Intermediate crude is down almost 5 percentage points. $70.24. Brent, North Sea is down 4.62% to 7388.
Natural gas going in the opposite direction, almost 2 points to the upside. And gasoline is down 3.68 percent back to $2.03 a gallon. Shining metal rocks are mixed. Gold is doing well today. 0.71 percent to the upside. We're at $26.842 sorry. $26.84.50 Silver is up 1 and a half to $31.80 Platinum is down 0.62. Copper is down 1 and a half. Palladium is down 1.1. Ag is mostly in the red today. Biggest winner is chocolate. 4.6 percent to the upside. The biggest loser is gonna be coffee down almost a full two points. Live cattle down 0.88%. Lean hogs moving sideways slightly red. Feeder cattle down 1.2%.
The Dow is down a quarter and the S and P is down a third. Nasdaq is down over a full point, but the S and P mini swinging for the fences. 0.77 percent to the upside. Now for Bitcoin, we've had multiple rods. Some of them are green. One of them is red. It's been an interesting morning. We're at $66,780 per coin. A $1,320,000,000,000 market cap allows you to purchase 24.9 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your 1 Bitcoin of which there are 19,000,000 167,842.99 of. And fees remain high. 0.15 BTC in fees on average on a per block basis. There are 105 blocks carrying 224,000 transactions waiting to clear at high priorities of 10 satoshis per vbyte. Low priority, gonna get you in at 7.
We are at 669.3 exahashes per second for the hash rate. Now from yesterday's episode, corrupts bank, where we talked about TD Bank, we've got who's who's who's who's chimed in here? Oh, there we are. God's death 537 satoshi says, thank you, sir. No, thank you. Wartime with 333 says, clap your hands and cheers emoji. Yay. And let's see. Oh, I did a test for a 100 sats. I had to go back to my old version of Fountain because the test flight version of Fountain was being really really weird. And it looks to me like the integration of Nostr to Fountain has made its way to the standard offering on iOS store or app the Apple app store.
And so I haven't really got a chance to test it out fully. But the test flight one was being real squirrelly and it was making my phone hot. And I I just don't like that. If you guys are having any issues with Fountain on test flight, please take the time to let Oscar Mayer know. Oscar Mayer is the head of that that whole project. And if you've got test flight, I think that there's a way to report bugs directly from the app as you're using it directly from fountain. Please let him know, because, like, I've gotta let him know that my battery was heating up. Pies to pleb. 100 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that is the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use. Okay, here's the news out of Mt. Gox.
Speaking of news, this is, this is gonna be really frustrating for some of the Mt. Gox creditors. We'll just get into the letter. This is a letter that was written by the rehabilitation trust and it's the notice concerning the change of repayment deadline. Change of repayment deadline. With the exception of certain types of repayments, the rehabilitation trustee has largely completed the base repayment, early lump sum repayment, and intermediate repayments, collectively the repayments, for rehabilitation creditors who have completed the necessary procedures for receiving repayments and have not encountered any issues during the repayments process.
However, many rehabilitation creditors still have not received their repayments because they have not completed the necessary procedures for receiving repayments. And additionally, a considerable number of rehabilitation creditors have not received the repayments due to various reasons, such as issues arising during the repayments process. As it is desirable to make the repayments to such rehabilitation creditors to the extent reasonably practicable, the rehabilitation trustee, with the permission of the court, has changed the deadline for the repayments from October 31, 2024 to October 31, 2025.
So they're saying that it looks to me like they're saying that some people have been having some problems getting the repayments. And those people who have had problems getting the repayments but have issued or signed the necessary paperwork to get the repayments are still going to have to wait for an entire year longer. Whereas the other people, like the people that have not turned in their paperwork, well, that's not Mt. Gox's fault. That's not the trustee's fault at this point. That's just people being lazy. Maybe they don't have enough to care about.
Who knows? Not my circus, not my monkeys. I never had any dealings with Mt. Gox. Thank God. But if you're if you're out there or you know somebody who's out there that has filed all the paperwork with Mt. Gox and still haven't gotten their repayments, they may very well have to wait for a full year longer. We call that forced Huddl. Okay. Fountain oh, here we go. Fountain version 1.1.5. Pay bolt 11 invoices, artist pages, and Library Improvements. The version is now available for both Android and iOS. Fountain is a lightning powered value for value podcasting app and a Nostr client.
The new version features a streamlined content library for better performance, the capability to pay bolt 11 invoices directly through the podcast app, and a dedicated artist page where you can view all tracks by a specific artist. Quote, it's now possible to pay for anything in Bitcoin with your podcast app. Next time you are buying a coffee and you can pay in Bitcoin, open Fountain, scan the invoice, and watch the cashier lose their mind, said the project in a blog post. So what's new? Well, there's a simpler library architecture. They've removed over 40,000 lines of code to deliver the following.
A new offline caching database for more reliable and less resource intensive offline playback, a simpler data model for reduced mobile data and memory use, fixes to playback issues such as queue rearranging, paying bolt 11 invoices. The wallet now, fountain wallet now lets you pay lightning invoices. You can scan any lightning invoice or paste from your clipboard to send Bitcoin payments. LNL, sorry, lnurl L withdraw You can also generate an invoice that you can paste into other lightning wallets. And finally, artist pages You can now access the artist page from any track or album page to view and play all tracks by that artist.
Additionally, you can skip tracks in the player or add them to your library queue or playlist. Artist search functionality will be added soon. Okay, so that looks like that they just they've just released yet another, another update to their test flight. Yeah. This is the, I think this is still the beta this is still the beta test flight and is not the one that is available actually in in the in the app store. So I may not have this ability. I'm gonna have to go go through and look at it. Well, sorry for that little jitter there. I had to answer the answer the phone my sister was calling and family always comes first. So where was I? Fountain. Yes. Fountain app. It appears that 1.1.5 actually, let me I'm gonna actually look at my phone here for a second to see what I've got what I pulled down off of the, app store.
Let me see if that is going to give me a place where I can look at no. I don't think it's gonna do it for me. I don't think it's actually gonna let me see an about page. You never know. Hold on. Hold on there. There's no about. Damn, son of a bitch. Oh, no, here we go. Down at the bottom I have version 1.1.5. Alright. So somewhere is gonna be the ability for me to pay an invoice and I have not yet seen it. So we'll just have to we'll have to we'll have to trust it. Alright. So if you are a fountain user, go check it out. I think that this is the one that is gonna be on the on the Apple Store. So get 1.1.5.
I know several people have contacted me and they've said, and I've had problems with fountain lately myself. See if this helps. If it does help, let Oscar Mary know that it actually helps. Now, on to Zeus version 0.9.1. Oh, again, Bolt 11 blinded pads, inbound routing fees, and more. Zeus is a Bitcoin mobile lightning wallet or Bitcoin and lightning wallet and a remote node manager for LND and core lightning. It is built on typescript and react native. It's available for Android and iOS. Quote, we're proud to announce the wide availability of version 0.9.1 of Zeus, including the Apple App Store and Google Play.
Zeus version 0.9.1 features enhancements and new functionality including inbound routing fees, improved receiver privacy, experimental rescans for external wallets and more. For q4, we're focusing on launching 2 new LSP services and looking more into Nostra integration for the wallet. Oh, good. We're hoping to share more updates soon and that was in a blog post. So the Bolt 11 blinded path. Zeus enhances user privacy with wrapped invoices when using Olympus LSP and now blinded paths which conceal the public keys and specify encrypted payment routes. Users can activate blinded paths via the receive view toggle when the LSP is off.
Inbound routing fees. Routing node operators can now set inbound routing fees for their channels. Inbound routing fees are currently only available in remote LND version 0.18.0 beta and higher interfaces. This is experimental. The rescans for external wallets. You can now set the birthday in blocks for external accounts from hardware wallets so that your Zeus wallet can scan for past events to improve the experience of crafting on chain transactions. This functionality is only available for embedded LND wallets for now. Linked contracts showing in channel view. If you have an open channel with a friend registered in your contact book and that friend's node is identified in their contact entry, a link to their contact will appear on all the channels that you have with them.
See, I'm not a Zeus user. I've heard that it's an awesome wallet. I have not used it myself, but just reading that I may have to look into this a lot harder. Okay. So, view on chain addresses options in the menu. This displays all addresses from LNDs list addresses grouped by account and address type hiding always hiding 0 balance addresses and sorting by creation time and balance, and there's a few additional things going on there. But on to simplex or simplex chat version 6.1.0 has been released. Better calls and iOS notifications as well as UX improvements.
SimpleX chat is a free and open source messaging platform that has no user identifiers and is private by design. It's available for Android and iOS. In July of 2024, Trail of Bits reviewed SimpleX network protocols and applications identifying 3 medium and one low severity issues, all demanding high difficulty privileged access exploits. 3 of these issues are improved in version 6.1 and the remaining issues are accepted. The full cryptographic design review is available here. What's new in this version? Enhanced call reliability and usability. You can now activate the camera and share your screen from the desktop app during voice calls. Nice.
Multiple issues affecting call connectivity have been resolved. There are better iOS notifications now. And the better user experience says new conversation layout and customizable messages. Improved switching between user profiles, faster deletion, moderation, and forwarding of messages. So if you are a simple ex user, you might be interested in that upgrade. Lightning DevKit LDK version 0.0.125 bug fix release. This is gonna finish us out. LDK Rust Lightning is a highly performant and flexible implementation of the Lightning Network protocol, in case you didn't know. This is a bug fix release with no public API changes.
It primarily fixes an issue where channels may be force closed upon upgrade. Oh, shit. That would suck. Upon upgrade to 0.0, 0.124. Damn. Yeah. I would hate to upgrade something in lightning and have, my channels that were using it be forced closed on me. Especially in a high fee environment, you don't you don't wanna have anything to do with that. Okay. So we are through the list for the day. Again, this is the most important election of our lives. Make sure make sure that you don't buy into the hype on either side of the aisle. Right? Who knows?
Okay, here's one thing. One thing I do know, Kamala Harris doesn't give a shit about Bitcoin. Alright. She's using it to pander. She's using it to gain votes. The woman is a moron. I sorry, but just listening to her talk is like it's like being drugged through an open sewer with like open wounds on my leg. I know I'm going to get sick if I stay there any longer and don't get into a shower of disinfectant. But that does not mean that I automatically think that trust is going to do or Trump is gonna do anything better or worse to Bitcoin if he gets elected.
Right? So if I actually subtract the Bitcoin equation from both the candidates, I I just can't see Kamala Harris doing anything but the further destruction of this country and we've got so much to fix now. It's not even funny. I can't actually say vote for Trump. I I I just I just kinda can't. But there's no libertarian candidate. The libertarian party has never had their shit together at, like, all. So I don't know. Maybe I just don't vote this year. I'm literally just all I want is to be left alone. And I get the feeling that most of the people that listen to this show, most of the people that are in Bitcoin would really just rather be left alone.
They want to call their friends, they want to go out fishing, they want to take their kids to, I don't know, a birthday party or something like that. But we're just tired of be having all this crap forced down our throats. Watching what's going on in North Carolina. Watching what's going on in Florida. Watching the wholesale destruction of the economy. It's just one thing after another with these people. I just can't anymore. So I I may just not vote. I don't know. I I don't really know what the hell I'm gonna do. This is just the the hype about the the, most important election of our time.
That trope has been said since the late 1970s. All through the 80s, all through the 90s, all through the aughts, and all through the tens, and here we are again with yet the most important election in the history of humankind. And it's all bullshit. It's not important. It's not any more important than last election or the election before that or the election before that. This shit was going back all the way to to Reagan. Right? I just I I just I like I said, I just I kinda can't with this. But one thing is for certain. I don't think either candidate really cares about Bitcoin the way that they say they care about Bitcoin.
If you are a single issue voter, it's probably a better it's probably better to say, what would happen if neither one of these people had said a thing about Bitcoin? And then make your decision from there. Then compare the decision that you would make if they didn't mention Bitcoin at all to what your decision would be now that you know that either both of them are saying things about Bitcoin. Is there a difference there? Is there enough of a difference that the subtraction of Bitcoin would make you vote for the other party? Because this is the danger that single issue voters get into, is letting that one thing guide everything else.
I don't trust either one of them about Bitcoin. So now I what I have to do is I have to say I can't be a single issue voter if I vote and I'm going to pull Bitcoin out of the equation with these 2 yahoos and see what I come up with after that. But it's not pretty when it comes to Kamala Harris. We're talking about socialism. We're talking about communism. We're talking about marxism. We're talking about for God's sakes, how do you even enact an unrealized capital gains tax? How does that how would that even work? Nothing's been said about an unrealized loss tax credit.
Is it only when it goes up? And what would you do if your home was included in that? Let's say your home was completely paid off. Right? Like, you know, let's say you bought a half a $1,000,000 house. You got rich in Bitcoin. You just paid it off. There's no mortgage. There's no there's no nothing but property taxes wherever you're at. And let's say and well, in in the United States, if you're outside the jurisdiction doesn't matter. But let's say that now now after a year of having that, it goes to $600,000 You have an because you haven't sold the house, you have an unrealized potential capital gain of $100,000 Do you get taxed?
Do you have to pay a third of that to the United States government? Where do you get the money? Do you have to sell your house to get the money? Because unless you're sitting on, like, oodles of cash who and you'd have to do that every single year. On what planet do you live on that you think that this woman is anything but a monster waiting to rip the rest of what's not been eviscerated from the United States out of the gut and string it up in the trees and like they're wrapping somebody's house on Halloween or something like that. It's just it amazes me that somebody would conceive that of not only conceive of the idea of an unrealized capital gains tax, but another person thinking that it's a good idea.
It is not a good idea. So that if I don't look at Bitcoin at all, I was never going to vote for Kamala in the first place. Now with her being racist about it and deciding that she's going to have to protect black men because they're too stupid to protect themselves, that kind of pandering that kind is not just pandering. It's there's something even more insidious about it because it's like she doesn't respect the black men themselves because she's obviously saying they're too stupid. So they need her help. I don't know man. This this whole thing is just This election cycle just sucks. It sucked last time it's gonna suck this time and it it's gonna suck again. It's just this the amount of suck in this just doesn't stop. So the only way out is to buy Bitcoin, hold Bitcoin, and I will see you on the other side.
This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
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 9:0:8 AM Pacific Daylight Time. It's the 15th day of October 2024.
This is episode 973 of Bitcoin and let's just jump in. Let's just do it. Let's get our feet wet and figure out if I was right in my estimation of Kamala Harris and pandering. And maybe I'm not right, but at least I might get some confirmation here from Nicholas Hoffman out of Bitcoin Magazine. Kamala Harris just proved she is the worst candidate for Bitcoin. Kamala Harris announced today she is quote, supporting a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and other digital assets so that black men who invest in and own these assets are protected.
Oh, they need protection. Nope. That's not clickbait. Harris's first specific crypto policy is here, and it's race based. Pausing to note confirmation number 1. I said it yesterday. This is racist. It's based on the color of people's skin. By definition, racist. Continuing, as a Bitcoiner, I have to say this is a huge misstep and it shows Harris in no way understands Bitcoin, a network where everyone already has equal access regardless of race, color, and creed. Harris and the Democrats have for years touted themselves as anti racist while labeling their opponents and anyone else who challenges them as a racist.
Here, Kamala is extending that policy to crypto, playing favoritism with one specific demographic. Let's let's just imagine. Trump had come out with an agenda stating he will work on policy that will benefit white people in the crypto industry. The media would be in an uproar about it, but but but but but unlike Harris, Trump is not favoring one race of people over everyone else. He is making pro bitcoin policies that are for all Americans. On this basis alone, Trump's approach is undoubtedly far better for Bitcoin than the one Harris has proposed. He actually gives specific details on what exactly he would do to foster innovation within the industry if elected. And it explains how these policies benefit everyone.
This new rhetoric by Harris appears to be nothing more than just pandering for votes to one group of people, while likely losing votes from the others that she's excluded. Any voter telling themselves otherwise is lying to themselves, pausing to note. Confirmation number 2, pandering. That's what I said yesterday. This is 100% pandering, and it looks like Nicholas Hoffman agrees with that. Continuing on, let's ask ourselves this. Do we think that Harris's policies will make it easier for black Americans to access and owed Bitcoin? Or or do we think that her admission will make it more difficult?
Or hit her administration, not admission. Sorry. Do we think that her administration will make it more difficult? If more hurdles are placed on black Bitcoin buyers, I, for one, can't imagine anything worse. Bitcoin is an open source protocol open to anyone in the world. It doesn't care what race you are, anyone can use it. This policy is a slap in the face to all American Bitcoiners, and Bitcoin voters should head to the polls in 3 weeks to make sure she is not elected as president. Okay, well, a little bit clearly pro, you know, a little more pro Trump, but it is pandering. She is being racist.
But what's worse is that the more that I thought about this, the more inane saying something like we're going to make it easier and we're going to protect black Americans who own and custody Bitcoin. It is a Nicholas is 100% correct here. It is an open protocol. Anyone can already use it. Do you have cash app on your phone? Do you have strike on your phone? Do you have a bank account? Do you have access to other Bitcoiners who would be willing to sell you some of their Bitcoin for a handful of cash directly without any intermediaries meeting at a bar and doing it? This is done. This is done all over the place. This was this was done before we had things like Cash App and Strike and all manner of, you know, exchanges. It was the honestly, it was one of the only ways you could actually buy Bitcoin other than Mt. Gox and well we'll get into the Mt. Gox thing here in a little bit I've got some I've got some news on that somewhere somewhere around here where is that thing hold on I got to make sure that I've got it Yes, I do have the Mt. Gox story. We are gonna get into that. What I don't understand, like, you could have said anything. We're gonna protect Native Americans.
We're gonna protect Chinese Americans. What is it about centering on a particular race that enamors these people so much? How is it not automatically construed within their own party as being clearly racist and nothing but racist. See, I I don't get this. When somebody says that you can make fun of white people because it's not reverse racism, that there's no such thing as racism when it comes to berating white people, how is that not racism? It is racism. That that that's the thing. It's a complete smokescreen and it's disgusting.
I just I hate watching these people fall down the stairs that they've worked so hard to climb up. It's like grandma, oh, we were almost at the top of the step. You you almost made it. You were and you were doing it under your own power. You were getting up those steps. But grandma, at the very top of the stairs decides, she's done. And she just falls and rolls back down the stairs. Hopefully, grandma's okay. But, grandma Harris at this point, I don't I I don't know how what outcome this election is gonna be, but, if here's here's my estimation.
If she's within 5 percentage points of Trump, there will be cheating and it will swing Harris's way. That's the way that this is gonna happen. If she is with if she is like on like 7 points under Trump in the polls, 8, I'll even give it 6. That there's no possible way that cheating would be effective in the medium to long term. It would be found out at a scale way worse because everybody is gonna be watching this one. Every everybody. There's gonna be so many eyes on the polling places and election results and numbers. Of course, not in the mainstream media. It's gonna be actual, you know, real human beings on the ground that are doing it.
But like I said, if it's 5 points if it's a 5 point difference between Trump and Harris or under, expect cheating to actually be effective and maybe not caught. If it's 6 to 10%, and it won't be 10, it'll still it'll only be single digits, Then if they cheat and if they try to cheat and they say that she won, it's going to be a bloodbath. It's gonna be really, really ugly. Now US spot Bitcoin ETFs. Yes. We're we're gonna talk a little bit about them. Martin Young, Cointelegraph. The Bitcoin ETFs see a $556,000,000 inflow on their biggest day since June.
Wow. United States spot Bitcoin exchange traded funds saw their biggest one day inflow in over 4 months with more than half of a $1,000,000,000 in inflows. The 11 ETF saw aggregate net inflows of $555,900,000 yesterday, October 14th. Their largest daily net inflow since early June according to data from Farside Investors. The big day came as Bitcoin hit a 2 week high of $66,500 in late trading. ETF store president Nate Goraci called it a monster day for spot Bitcoin ETFs, adding that they were now approaching 20,000,000,000 with a b. $20,000,000,000 of net inflows over the past 10 months.
Quote, simply ridiculous and blows away every pre launch demand estimate, he said in an October 15th Twitter post, quote, this is not degenerate retail. It's advisors and institutional investors continuing to slowly adopt, end quote. The Fidelity wise Bitcoin Origin Fund was the leader. Not not BlackRock. No. No. No. It was Fidelity wise Bitcoin Origin Fund leading the pack with an inflow of $239,300,000 That was its highest since June 4th. The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF had a little over $100,000,000 while BlackRock's Ishares Bitcoin Trust saw inflows of a $79,600,000 Arc shares, had inflows of just under 70. And the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust saw its first inflow for October at 37,800,000, its highest since May.
In an October 14th Twitter post, Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas compared Bitcoin ETFs to gold based products noting that since the January launch of the BTC funds, the asset has hit an all time high not once not twice not 3 times and not 4 but 5 times. Meanwhile, gold has hit record highs 30 times this year. But gold ETFs have only seen $1,400,000,000 in net inflows compared to the more than $19,000,000,000 for Bitcoin ETFs, Balchuna said. Still, shitcoin number 1 funds were not enjoying the same momentum with 0 net flows for Bitwise, VanEck, Franklin, and Grayscale, and minor flows for Fidelity and Invesco.
The BlackRock iShares shitcoin number 1 trust had an inflow of $14,300,000 bringing the total to $17,000,000. My god. The Ethereum ETF is just not doing well at all. Can't imagine why. Maybe it's the continual shifting of their monetary policy because Vitalik woke up with a headache, whatever. Okay. So cash margined Bitcoin futures. Now I see this all the time. Now on Noster and I used to see it on Twitter. We keep seeing these tweets that record high open interest is occurring at any given day. Alright? Like, just like like 4 or 5 months ago. It's like, oh my god. Open interest hit, I don't know, whatever, 1,000,000 or $1,000,000,000 on and then there's always an accompanying charge.
Oh, the open interest. And then always, always, there's always a post or a reply to whatever whoever said that. If anybody says open interest on Bitcoin hits an all time high, you can bet your bottom dollar the first post or the first reply to that is a rocket ship or a meme of a rocket taken off into space or some bullshit like that. Please stop doing that because that's not what open interest means. Cash margin Bitcoin futures are more popular than ever as open interest reaches yet new highs coin desk and James Van Stratton I want to try to explain this to you Cash margin Bitcoin future contracts are more popular than ever.
Open interest in cash margin futures hit an all time high of 384,000 BTC. That's about $25,500,000,000 on Monday, surpassing the November 2022 peak of 376,000 BTC when Bitcoin traded near $16,000 a coin, according to data source Glassnode. The CME futures accounted for 40% of the cash margin tally on Monday. Glassnode's cash and crypto margin charts include standard future data excluding perpetuals from Binance, Bitfinex, BitMex, Bybit, CME, Derabit, Huobi, Kraken, and OKX. Cash Margined Open Interest has been steadily increasing for the last 2 years while open interest in crypto margin has steadily declined from 210,000 BTC to 87,000 now accounting for just 18.2 percent of the total open interest of 478,000 BTC Glassnode defines crypto margin as, quote, the total amount of futures contracts open interest that is margined in the native coin and not in United States dollars or some stable coin, end quote.
The firm defines cash margin as, quote, the total amount of futures contracts open interest that is margined in USD or USD pegged stable coins. Stable coins include USDT and BUSD at this time. Open interest refers this is the here we get into some some of the the definitions here. Open interest refers to the number of active or open futures contracts at any given time. An uptick in open interest is said to represent an inflow of money and preference for leveraged products. Open interest can be measured in native token terms and notional terms. The latter is influenced by the underlying asset's price and therefore can be misleading.
In cash margin contracts, the underlying collateral being used is stablecoins and or dollars which are more stable than tokens used as margin in the crypto collateralized futures. As such, cash margin contracts are relatively less vulnerable to forced liquidations and breed less volatility. Ultimately, this could provide a more sustainable bull run moving into 2025. Yeah. They always say that shit. I'll get to it here in a second. The CME's leadership in cash margin segment suggests increasing institutional activity in the derivatives market. Sophisticated investors, not you plebs, but no. No. No. Sophisticated investors might be using CME Futures to hedge their directional plays or or set up the market neutral basis trade.
In October of 2023, CME became the largest futures exchange for the very first time, capturing over 30% of the market share and overtaking Binance. This increase was most likely driven by traders pricing the expected debut of the US based spot ETFs, which went live in January. What does it all mean? And why am I bitching about it? Because open interest represents money flowing in to derivative products like futures contracts. It's not necessarily buying the underlying asset and holding it. It's making a bet on price.
And that can be a short contract or a long contract. And if if you're going long, hey, man, more power to you. That means that you've got some actual real belief. But open interest, when these people go, oh my god, open interest hit an all time high, that includes people that think it's going to fucking 0. Well, not 0, but they certainly are betting on a price dump, a small crash, or at least, you know, getting down to a point where they where their short contracts actually pay out for them. They're betting on demise. And then there's other people that are, you know, betting on the future of Bitcoin being something even more valuable than it already is, at least in USD terms.
So that's my problem. Whenever somebody says, Oh my God, open interest hit a new all time high. I get butterflies in my stomach and not in a good way. I get nervous because that means that people are not actually buying the underlying asset. It means they're just betting in a derivative fueled, aping in, degenerate casino kind of way. So that's why I have a problem when everybody's like, oh my god, it's open interest and it's an all time high. It doesn't mean anything other than that people are being degenerate. So just let please, please, when whenever you see those posts on on Twitter or, I don't know, LinkedIn or Doster or whatever, just think twice that it doesn't necessarily mean that things are good.
Right? It just means that there's there's more interest in the asset class, but the asset class includes derivatives like futures contracts and I don't know probably other derivatives on those futures contracts and bets on bets on bets on bets on bets. It's it's never it's casino gambling is never good for your health. Please don't gamble. Just buy the damn thing and hold it. Okay. So Blockstream is doing just that. They're buying the damn thing and holding it Or at least that's what it looks like. Let's find out more. James Hunt, the block.
Blockstream secures $210,000,000 to drive layer 2 growth and to expand its Bitcoin Treasury. Following the buzz around Blockstream and its co founder and CEO Adam Bak's appearance on the HBO documentary last week, the Bitcoin infrastructure developer announced on Tuesday that it had secured $210,000,000 via a convertible note financing round led by Folger Ventures. Let me just pause. Convertible note financing. Who does this sound like? It sounds like MicroStrategy. The fresh capital will be used to accelerate the adoption and development of Blockstream's Bitcoin layer 2 technologies, expand its mining operations in preparation for the new Bitcoin market cycle, and boost its Bitcoin Treasury, the firm said in a statement.
This latest fundraise represents a defining moment for Blockstream as we embark on a critical new phase of growth to further bridge the gap between Bitcoin and the wider world of finance, Bak said. Put a tie on that suit speak, brother. Blockstream's layer 2 solution include the liquid network, a federated Bitcoin side chain that can deploy multiple types of tokenized assets and core lightning and implementation of the lightning network designed to enable faster and cheaper Bitcoin transactions. Blockstream aims to capitalize on increasing interest in bitcoin as an asset class and broader tokenization potential in general to position liquid as the de facto infrastructure for tokenizing real world assets within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
The firm claims over $1,800,000,000 in assets, including stablecoins, tokenized bonds, and securities have been issued on liquid to date with over 3,844 BTC locked on chain. Crypto exchange Bitfinex tokenized securities offerings are an example of the products utilizing the platform. Another is Stoker's issuance of the MicroStrategy note, CMSTR, which is fully backed by MicroStrategy shares and can be traded peer to peer against Bitcoin on the liquid DEX sideswap. Last month, Blockstream also launched series 3 of its own BMN 2 secondurity token, which provides direct exposure to the firm's Bitcoin hash rate. Meanwhile, Blockstream also announced the addition of Michael Minkovich to its leadership team on Tuesday with the former product engineering lead at global IT service provider, Luxoft, taking on the role as chief operating officer.
Blockstream has a unique product portfolio and one of the best engineering teams building reliable bitcoin solutions, making it perfectly suited to lead the ongoing transformation of the fintech industry, Minkovich said following his appointment. Quote, we are especially excited to welcome Michael Minkovich as COO and grateful for the support of Folger Ventures whose combined expertise will be vital as we look to capitalize on new opportunities across the financial industry and other key sectors, Backsett. That's the end of the article and I really really really wish that they had dove deep into the statement that they were using convertible note financing.
So all I can do at this point is to conjecture that they are they have a kind of a well, they're they're not doing it looks to me like they're not doing exactly what MicroStrategy is doing. But then again, neither is similar scientific. And in a very real way, Meta Planet is doing just a, you know, a couple things a little bit different. So what this tells me is that while more and more companies are in fact adopting Michael Saylor's strategy book or playbook or whatever it was that you wanna call it. And it was that thing that he had a huge webinar, Michael Saylor did. It was for free and he invited all these CEO, chief investment officers from all these really huge companies around the world and he basically gave them exactly the instructions on how to leverage Bitcoin for their treasuries.
What I've seen is that every single company has a different take on Michael Strategies, Michael's strategy MicroStrategy's strategy right and that honestly that's good this is good I I they're not just they're not just taking what Michael gave them and just doing the exact same thing they're all operating just a hair differently. And what we're going to get out of that is several different experiments running concurrently that have basically the same kind of, variables involved, the same kind of underlying asset involved, but they're treating the way that they're doing it just a little bit differently. And this means that the outcomes of all these slightly different experiments will inform the next round of companies that are going to start doing this. They will have more options. The playbook is being expanded, in other words. But it's being expanded by people who are like, let's try this.
And then I guarantee they will report back that their reporting will be included in the next iteration of quote unquote the playbook. Now I don't mean that Michael Strata Michael strategy. I'm doing it again. That micro strategy is going to rewrite the actual playbook as a PDF and re redistribute it with this new information. No. This is now becoming part of the, I don't know, the business lore as to how to operate around Bitcoin. And it will just it'll just be its own thing. This is I think this is honestly good. Now, I agree that there's like the more institutionalized we get the more indifferent dangers come out of the woodwork for how we're going to continue to hold our Bitcoin.
But a Bitcoin is for enemy. B, you can't stop your enemies from actually using it. And you cannot stop your enemies from doing weird and possibly twisted things with it. It is what it is. And the minute that we accept that we just can't control what these people do with it is the minute that we understand that nobody else can control how we think about what we should do with Bitcoin. Let's run the numbers. West Texas Intermediate crude is down almost 5 percentage points. $70.24. Brent, North Sea is down 4.62% to 7388.
Natural gas going in the opposite direction, almost 2 points to the upside. And gasoline is down 3.68 percent back to $2.03 a gallon. Shining metal rocks are mixed. Gold is doing well today. 0.71 percent to the upside. We're at $26.842 sorry. $26.84.50 Silver is up 1 and a half to $31.80 Platinum is down 0.62. Copper is down 1 and a half. Palladium is down 1.1. Ag is mostly in the red today. Biggest winner is chocolate. 4.6 percent to the upside. The biggest loser is gonna be coffee down almost a full two points. Live cattle down 0.88%. Lean hogs moving sideways slightly red. Feeder cattle down 1.2%.
The Dow is down a quarter and the S and P is down a third. Nasdaq is down over a full point, but the S and P mini swinging for the fences. 0.77 percent to the upside. Now for Bitcoin, we've had multiple rods. Some of them are green. One of them is red. It's been an interesting morning. We're at $66,780 per coin. A $1,320,000,000,000 market cap allows you to purchase 24.9 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your 1 Bitcoin of which there are 19,000,000 167,842.99 of. And fees remain high. 0.15 BTC in fees on average on a per block basis. There are 105 blocks carrying 224,000 transactions waiting to clear at high priorities of 10 satoshis per vbyte. Low priority, gonna get you in at 7.
We are at 669.3 exahashes per second for the hash rate. Now from yesterday's episode, corrupts bank, where we talked about TD Bank, we've got who's who's who's who's chimed in here? Oh, there we are. God's death 537 satoshi says, thank you, sir. No, thank you. Wartime with 333 says, clap your hands and cheers emoji. Yay. And let's see. Oh, I did a test for a 100 sats. I had to go back to my old version of Fountain because the test flight version of Fountain was being really really weird. And it looks to me like the integration of Nostr to Fountain has made its way to the standard offering on iOS store or app the Apple app store.
And so I haven't really got a chance to test it out fully. But the test flight one was being real squirrelly and it was making my phone hot. And I I just don't like that. If you guys are having any issues with Fountain on test flight, please take the time to let Oscar Mayer know. Oscar Mayer is the head of that that whole project. And if you've got test flight, I think that there's a way to report bugs directly from the app as you're using it directly from fountain. Please let him know, because, like, I've gotta let him know that my battery was heating up. Pies to pleb. 100 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that is the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use. Okay, here's the news out of Mt. Gox.
Speaking of news, this is, this is gonna be really frustrating for some of the Mt. Gox creditors. We'll just get into the letter. This is a letter that was written by the rehabilitation trust and it's the notice concerning the change of repayment deadline. Change of repayment deadline. With the exception of certain types of repayments, the rehabilitation trustee has largely completed the base repayment, early lump sum repayment, and intermediate repayments, collectively the repayments, for rehabilitation creditors who have completed the necessary procedures for receiving repayments and have not encountered any issues during the repayments process.
However, many rehabilitation creditors still have not received their repayments because they have not completed the necessary procedures for receiving repayments. And additionally, a considerable number of rehabilitation creditors have not received the repayments due to various reasons, such as issues arising during the repayments process. As it is desirable to make the repayments to such rehabilitation creditors to the extent reasonably practicable, the rehabilitation trustee, with the permission of the court, has changed the deadline for the repayments from October 31, 2024 to October 31, 2025.
So they're saying that it looks to me like they're saying that some people have been having some problems getting the repayments. And those people who have had problems getting the repayments but have issued or signed the necessary paperwork to get the repayments are still going to have to wait for an entire year longer. Whereas the other people, like the people that have not turned in their paperwork, well, that's not Mt. Gox's fault. That's not the trustee's fault at this point. That's just people being lazy. Maybe they don't have enough to care about.
Who knows? Not my circus, not my monkeys. I never had any dealings with Mt. Gox. Thank God. But if you're if you're out there or you know somebody who's out there that has filed all the paperwork with Mt. Gox and still haven't gotten their repayments, they may very well have to wait for a full year longer. We call that forced Huddl. Okay. Fountain oh, here we go. Fountain version 1.1.5. Pay bolt 11 invoices, artist pages, and Library Improvements. The version is now available for both Android and iOS. Fountain is a lightning powered value for value podcasting app and a Nostr client.
The new version features a streamlined content library for better performance, the capability to pay bolt 11 invoices directly through the podcast app, and a dedicated artist page where you can view all tracks by a specific artist. Quote, it's now possible to pay for anything in Bitcoin with your podcast app. Next time you are buying a coffee and you can pay in Bitcoin, open Fountain, scan the invoice, and watch the cashier lose their mind, said the project in a blog post. So what's new? Well, there's a simpler library architecture. They've removed over 40,000 lines of code to deliver the following.
A new offline caching database for more reliable and less resource intensive offline playback, a simpler data model for reduced mobile data and memory use, fixes to playback issues such as queue rearranging, paying bolt 11 invoices. The wallet now, fountain wallet now lets you pay lightning invoices. You can scan any lightning invoice or paste from your clipboard to send Bitcoin payments. LNL, sorry, lnurl L withdraw You can also generate an invoice that you can paste into other lightning wallets. And finally, artist pages You can now access the artist page from any track or album page to view and play all tracks by that artist.
Additionally, you can skip tracks in the player or add them to your library queue or playlist. Artist search functionality will be added soon. Okay, so that looks like that they just they've just released yet another, another update to their test flight. Yeah. This is the, I think this is still the beta this is still the beta test flight and is not the one that is available actually in in the in the app store. So I may not have this ability. I'm gonna have to go go through and look at it. Well, sorry for that little jitter there. I had to answer the answer the phone my sister was calling and family always comes first. So where was I? Fountain. Yes. Fountain app. It appears that 1.1.5 actually, let me I'm gonna actually look at my phone here for a second to see what I've got what I pulled down off of the, app store.
Let me see if that is going to give me a place where I can look at no. I don't think it's gonna do it for me. I don't think it's actually gonna let me see an about page. You never know. Hold on. Hold on there. There's no about. Damn, son of a bitch. Oh, no, here we go. Down at the bottom I have version 1.1.5. Alright. So somewhere is gonna be the ability for me to pay an invoice and I have not yet seen it. So we'll just have to we'll have to we'll have to trust it. Alright. So if you are a fountain user, go check it out. I think that this is the one that is gonna be on the on the Apple Store. So get 1.1.5.
I know several people have contacted me and they've said, and I've had problems with fountain lately myself. See if this helps. If it does help, let Oscar Mary know that it actually helps. Now, on to Zeus version 0.9.1. Oh, again, Bolt 11 blinded pads, inbound routing fees, and more. Zeus is a Bitcoin mobile lightning wallet or Bitcoin and lightning wallet and a remote node manager for LND and core lightning. It is built on typescript and react native. It's available for Android and iOS. Quote, we're proud to announce the wide availability of version 0.9.1 of Zeus, including the Apple App Store and Google Play.
Zeus version 0.9.1 features enhancements and new functionality including inbound routing fees, improved receiver privacy, experimental rescans for external wallets and more. For q4, we're focusing on launching 2 new LSP services and looking more into Nostra integration for the wallet. Oh, good. We're hoping to share more updates soon and that was in a blog post. So the Bolt 11 blinded path. Zeus enhances user privacy with wrapped invoices when using Olympus LSP and now blinded paths which conceal the public keys and specify encrypted payment routes. Users can activate blinded paths via the receive view toggle when the LSP is off.
Inbound routing fees. Routing node operators can now set inbound routing fees for their channels. Inbound routing fees are currently only available in remote LND version 0.18.0 beta and higher interfaces. This is experimental. The rescans for external wallets. You can now set the birthday in blocks for external accounts from hardware wallets so that your Zeus wallet can scan for past events to improve the experience of crafting on chain transactions. This functionality is only available for embedded LND wallets for now. Linked contracts showing in channel view. If you have an open channel with a friend registered in your contact book and that friend's node is identified in their contact entry, a link to their contact will appear on all the channels that you have with them.
See, I'm not a Zeus user. I've heard that it's an awesome wallet. I have not used it myself, but just reading that I may have to look into this a lot harder. Okay. So, view on chain addresses options in the menu. This displays all addresses from LNDs list addresses grouped by account and address type hiding always hiding 0 balance addresses and sorting by creation time and balance, and there's a few additional things going on there. But on to simplex or simplex chat version 6.1.0 has been released. Better calls and iOS notifications as well as UX improvements.
SimpleX chat is a free and open source messaging platform that has no user identifiers and is private by design. It's available for Android and iOS. In July of 2024, Trail of Bits reviewed SimpleX network protocols and applications identifying 3 medium and one low severity issues, all demanding high difficulty privileged access exploits. 3 of these issues are improved in version 6.1 and the remaining issues are accepted. The full cryptographic design review is available here. What's new in this version? Enhanced call reliability and usability. You can now activate the camera and share your screen from the desktop app during voice calls. Nice.
Multiple issues affecting call connectivity have been resolved. There are better iOS notifications now. And the better user experience says new conversation layout and customizable messages. Improved switching between user profiles, faster deletion, moderation, and forwarding of messages. So if you are a simple ex user, you might be interested in that upgrade. Lightning DevKit LDK version 0.0.125 bug fix release. This is gonna finish us out. LDK Rust Lightning is a highly performant and flexible implementation of the Lightning Network protocol, in case you didn't know. This is a bug fix release with no public API changes.
It primarily fixes an issue where channels may be force closed upon upgrade. Oh, shit. That would suck. Upon upgrade to 0.0, 0.124. Damn. Yeah. I would hate to upgrade something in lightning and have, my channels that were using it be forced closed on me. Especially in a high fee environment, you don't you don't wanna have anything to do with that. Okay. So we are through the list for the day. Again, this is the most important election of our lives. Make sure make sure that you don't buy into the hype on either side of the aisle. Right? Who knows?
Okay, here's one thing. One thing I do know, Kamala Harris doesn't give a shit about Bitcoin. Alright. She's using it to pander. She's using it to gain votes. The woman is a moron. I sorry, but just listening to her talk is like it's like being drugged through an open sewer with like open wounds on my leg. I know I'm going to get sick if I stay there any longer and don't get into a shower of disinfectant. But that does not mean that I automatically think that trust is going to do or Trump is gonna do anything better or worse to Bitcoin if he gets elected.
Right? So if I actually subtract the Bitcoin equation from both the candidates, I I just can't see Kamala Harris doing anything but the further destruction of this country and we've got so much to fix now. It's not even funny. I can't actually say vote for Trump. I I I just I just kinda can't. But there's no libertarian candidate. The libertarian party has never had their shit together at, like, all. So I don't know. Maybe I just don't vote this year. I'm literally just all I want is to be left alone. And I get the feeling that most of the people that listen to this show, most of the people that are in Bitcoin would really just rather be left alone.
They want to call their friends, they want to go out fishing, they want to take their kids to, I don't know, a birthday party or something like that. But we're just tired of be having all this crap forced down our throats. Watching what's going on in North Carolina. Watching what's going on in Florida. Watching the wholesale destruction of the economy. It's just one thing after another with these people. I just can't anymore. So I I may just not vote. I don't know. I I don't really know what the hell I'm gonna do. This is just the the hype about the the, most important election of our time.
That trope has been said since the late 1970s. All through the 80s, all through the 90s, all through the aughts, and all through the tens, and here we are again with yet the most important election in the history of humankind. And it's all bullshit. It's not important. It's not any more important than last election or the election before that or the election before that. This shit was going back all the way to to Reagan. Right? I just I I just I like I said, I just I kinda can't with this. But one thing is for certain. I don't think either candidate really cares about Bitcoin the way that they say they care about Bitcoin.
If you are a single issue voter, it's probably a better it's probably better to say, what would happen if neither one of these people had said a thing about Bitcoin? And then make your decision from there. Then compare the decision that you would make if they didn't mention Bitcoin at all to what your decision would be now that you know that either both of them are saying things about Bitcoin. Is there a difference there? Is there enough of a difference that the subtraction of Bitcoin would make you vote for the other party? Because this is the danger that single issue voters get into, is letting that one thing guide everything else.
I don't trust either one of them about Bitcoin. So now I what I have to do is I have to say I can't be a single issue voter if I vote and I'm going to pull Bitcoin out of the equation with these 2 yahoos and see what I come up with after that. But it's not pretty when it comes to Kamala Harris. We're talking about socialism. We're talking about communism. We're talking about marxism. We're talking about for God's sakes, how do you even enact an unrealized capital gains tax? How does that how would that even work? Nothing's been said about an unrealized loss tax credit.
Is it only when it goes up? And what would you do if your home was included in that? Let's say your home was completely paid off. Right? Like, you know, let's say you bought a half a $1,000,000 house. You got rich in Bitcoin. You just paid it off. There's no mortgage. There's no there's no nothing but property taxes wherever you're at. And let's say and well, in in the United States, if you're outside the jurisdiction doesn't matter. But let's say that now now after a year of having that, it goes to $600,000 You have an because you haven't sold the house, you have an unrealized potential capital gain of $100,000 Do you get taxed?
Do you have to pay a third of that to the United States government? Where do you get the money? Do you have to sell your house to get the money? Because unless you're sitting on, like, oodles of cash who and you'd have to do that every single year. On what planet do you live on that you think that this woman is anything but a monster waiting to rip the rest of what's not been eviscerated from the United States out of the gut and string it up in the trees and like they're wrapping somebody's house on Halloween or something like that. It's just it amazes me that somebody would conceive that of not only conceive of the idea of an unrealized capital gains tax, but another person thinking that it's a good idea.
It is not a good idea. So that if I don't look at Bitcoin at all, I was never going to vote for Kamala in the first place. Now with her being racist about it and deciding that she's going to have to protect black men because they're too stupid to protect themselves, that kind of pandering that kind is not just pandering. It's there's something even more insidious about it because it's like she doesn't respect the black men themselves because she's obviously saying they're too stupid. So they need her help. I don't know man. This this whole thing is just This election cycle just sucks. It sucked last time it's gonna suck this time and it it's gonna suck again. It's just this the amount of suck in this just doesn't stop. So the only way out is to buy Bitcoin, hold Bitcoin, and I will see you on the other side.
This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
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Election Reflections and Bitcoin's Role
