Join me today for Episode 920 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- RNC Embraces Bitcoin
- Aussies Get 2nd Spot BTC ETF
- Germans's Bitcoin Getting Soaked up by Market
- Paxful's Co-Founder Arrested
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
Circle P:
If you (pleb) want to own some cows, have them rotationally grazed, be able to pick them up if you get your own farm, get a portion of their offspring, and get a prime spot to fish and camp near Kansas City and a several wineries, hit me up.
Buying a herd of bred heifers in June. $3-4k in bitcoin per head and no ongoing maintenance cost. 8 accounted for so far, 17 head left.
Contact Auggie:
https://primal.net/p/npub16ux4qzg4qjue95vr3q327fzata4n594c9kgh4jmeyn80v8k54nhqg6lra7
The King Ranch Donation Page:
https://www.givesendgo.com/Kingranch
Articles:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/republican-national-committee-endorses-pro-bitcoin-platform-in-party-draft
https://cointelegraph.com/news/asx-gets-second-spot-bitcoin-etf-launch-australia-digitalx
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/07/08/bitcoin-drops-as-german-government-moves-another-500m-of-assets/
https://primal.net/e/note1quhve7sk7m4f9t7k2jnqyrlh5zcz54eafvmxwmm9c09teq47zeqsex9dkt
- https://www.cnbc.com/futures-and-commodities/
- https://www.cnbc.com/bonds/
- https://dashboard.clarkmoody.com/
- https://mempool.space/
- https://fountain.fm/show/eK5XaSb3UaLRavU3lYrI
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/ditto-a-nostr-community-server/
https://primal.net/e/note1m66fh8rclnm295c2uxx8jq8dlz4q8ggcnyg75d2unymp798fnqksgpy8gc
https://gitworkshop.dev/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/paxful-cofounder-faces-five-years-jail-aml-program
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/senator-marsha-blackburn-now-accepts-bitcoin-and-crypto-donations
Find the Bitcoin And Podcast on every podcast app here:
https://episodes.fm/1438789088
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npub1vwymuey3u7mf860ndrkw3r7dz30s0srg6tqmhtjzg7umtm6rn5eq2qzugd (npub)
6389be6491e7b693e9f368ece88fcd145f07c068d2c1bbae4247b9b5ef439d32 (Hex)
Twitter:
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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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[00:00:00]
Unknown:
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. Uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 11:11 am. It's a big row of sticks here in the Pacific, inland northwest.
It is the 9th day of July 2024. This is episode 920. 920 of Bitcoin, and I'm entitling it Clubbing Baby Seals. Yeah, you'll see why when you see the album art. If you have a modern podcast app, you'll be able to see the album art. Otherwise, that means that you're using some run of the mill crap like Apple Podcasts And honestly, you really shouldn't be doing that. You should be using a modern podcast app because that way you'll be able to stream these satoshis and give me boost and help keep this show on the air, as it were. Which is why I'm calling today's episode Clubbing Baby Seals because man, the donations for, last show was like dismal. And it made me maybe it's because of Sook. I don't know. But I'm just saying I got people listening and I think that it would be better if more people were listening on a fresh, new, modern podcasting 2.0 app so that you can show your appreciation because we are moving to a value for value landscape more than ever before and faster than I think a lot of people think But the uptake, you know, it it's sort of like this tension. Right? There's this in some cases, people will say value for value is never going to work because it's just too slow on the uptake. Whereas people like me are like going, do you have any idea how fast this shit's moving?
And somewhere in the middle lies the actual truth of how we're going to do media as a world civilization going forward. We can't trust CNN. I mean, I saw stories today that Ukraine is not gonna be allowed into NATO because they're just too corrupt. After we've completely forced them to destroy all of their genetic pool because most of their men are basically dead, there's not a whole lot of breeding stock left and I know that that's a terrible way to go about saying this but we were told that this was that Putin bad, Ukraine good, and now all of a sudden the United States is saying that Ukraine is too corrupt. I don't know who to trust.
The only people that I actually trust now are people that actually have podcasts. And sure, are they gonna get shit wrong? Yeah, but at least they're honest about getting shit wrong. They're not flat ass lying to me because they have some kind of other agenda. Some do. Yeah. That's why I don't listen to shitcoiners and their podcasts because they just want me to buy their bags. But other than that, as we move forward, as a civilization, we're going to always have some form of media. And I don't trust any of the media from Legacy Financial World. I just don't.
So the only option that we have is for the plebs to take control and Pfizer is not going to sponsor us because we are going to tell the truth about Pfizer, right? We're going to say that maybe something ain't right. And therefore you can forget about, you know, any kind of legacy support. All of the support that is going to go to people like me is going to come from plebs and pleb run companies in the future and they're all going to be Bitcoiners. So, there we go. There's that 1. Now, I do have a new guy in the circle p. The circle p is open for business and if you want to support the show and support the people that support the show, then support the vendors in the circle p.
And this guy and let me make sure that I got, Auggie's information up here. Hold on. Hold on. This is Auggie, a u g g I e. And, I believe it's the a u 9913 is going to be 1 of his handles on Nostar. Now this guy, we're still working we're still working the details out, but if you've ever thought about owning cows but you don't have the land, You, like, let's say you're living in a suburban lot and you like the idea of beef and cattle ranching and grazing and all the good things that come along with it. If you wanna own some cows and have them rotationally grazed, And you can pick them up if you get your own farm 1 of these days and get a portion of their offspring and get a prime spot to fish and camp near Kansas City and some sweet wineries, then you need to hit Augie up. Again, it's AU 9913 over on Nostra. I will have a direct link to, his Nostra in the show notes, so don't worry worried about that. You can just hit the link and it will go take you right to it. He's buying a herd of bred heifers and he did that in June.
Now, what he's saying is that there are about $3, 000 to $4, 000 in Bitcoin per head, but there's no ongoing maintenance costs. And as of June 8 were accounted for so far and he had 17 left to buy. So let's just say that he's got 5 or 6 slots left, maybe 10, I don't know. But, if for whatever reason you like the idea of having a cow, being able to get the benefits from that cow, it's in a longer term format, but you're not going to put a cow in your front yard because, you know, Karen down the street is gonna get all freaked out about it, then you're gonna go to a u 9913. That is Auggie.
He's into agroforestry, regenerative agriculture. He under stands low time preference farming probably because he's a Bitcoiner as well. And again, he wouldn't be in the circle p if he wasn't taking Bitcoin because if you're not taking Bitcoin, you ain't in the circle p. Now, let's get on to the Republican National Committee. They're endorsing a pro Bitcoin platform, at least they are so doing in the party draft, and we'll figure out what the hell that means from Nick Hoffman today. A Republican National Committee panel approved a draft of its 2024 party platform and it strongly supports Bitcoin on page 9.
The draft explicitly states, quote, we will defend the right to mine Bitcoin and they actually write the word Bitcoin, not crypto. Okay? They write the word Bitcoin and ensure every American has the right to self custody of their digital assets and transact free from government surveillance and control. Pretty strong statement. Additionally, it promises to end what it calls the Democrats' unlawful and un American crypto crackdown and opposes the creation of a central bank digital currency. According to the Hill, the platform committee overwhelmingly approved the new draft and it will face a vinyl final, not vinyl, a final vote today on Tuesday.
This decision further marks a clear stance by the Republican Party in favor of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency innovation, positioning itself against the current unwelcoming stance by the Biden administration and the Democrats. Oh my god. The Democrat democrats. The draft reflects the growing interest in advocacy for protecting and supporting Bitcoin within the party, aligning with broader trends of Bitcoin adoption and support among various Republican politicians, in May, Donald Trump said he quote, will ensure that the future of crypto and Bitcoin will be made in the USA end quote.
The full approved draft can be read here and of course there's a link to that and if all this story, as well as all the things that I read on The Daily Show, is going to be in the show notes. Full links. And, if you're using a modern podcasting 2.0 app, there's chapters. And I try my best to include all of the links for the actual chapters themselves. So there's at least 2 different ways that you can get a hold of exactly what I'm reading. So if you want to go read the 2024 GOP platform, Make America Great Again, then you'll be able to pick up the link inside the story and the story will be in the show notes with a link. Now, what to say about this?
If you believe for a second that they are all in on protecting Bitcoin because, for Bitcoin's sake, you're fooling yourself. These are politicians. And understand, politicians, no matter what side of the fence you sit on, if you're listening to me and you're a staunch Democrat and you just cannot stand the words of Donald Trump coming out of my mouth, I get it. I get it. And, of course, you'll go, he's lying. I get that too. But if you think the Democrats are, like, anywhere close to being above themselves and not prone to doing the same kind of pandering, you're also wrong. Now, right now, it does not seem like the Democrat party is capable of understanding that we just don't want their money anymore.
But I trust neither side. And most people will say, well, that puts you squarely in the middle of the road and if you don't pick a side, at 1 point or another, you're gonna go squish. I think that that is a complete bullshit way of looking at it. Just because I don't trust the 2 parties that I've been told are the only parties in existence does not, in any way, shape, form, or fashion, put me in the middle of the road. I'm not on the fucking road. I'm walking on a path in the middle of the forest. I got nothing to do with you and your stupid ass Democrat or Republican traffic. I'm sorry. I don't trust either 1 of these guys, but that's what's going on as far as the Republican party draft, which will probably be ratified today, Tuesday. Now, let's go across a couple of oceans over to Australia.
Australia's main stock exchange is going to get their 2nd number 2 spot Bitcoin ETF. Braden Lindria from Cointelegraph, blockchain focused asset manager, DigitalX, has received regulatory approval to launch its spot Bitcoin exchange traded fund, which will become the second Bitcoin ETF to trade on the Australian Securities Exchange. The DigitalX Bitcoin ETF will be listed under the ticker BTXX on July 12th. So that's, what, Friday? I think that that's Friday, let's see. Yep. Friday. So the end of this week, we'll look to see. The approval of, to listbtxx was described as a watershed moment, baby, by its CEO Lisa Wade, quote, the Digital X Bitcoin ETF is a spot ETF product that provides ASX customers with direct access to Bitcoin via a regulated and liquid fund structure. It is exciting to see the growth and development of the digital asset markets reflect in this approval, says Australia's the Digital X's chair, Toby Hicks. Yeah. That's it.
Digital X partnered with the investment management firm K Asset Management to act as the responsible entity and issuer of the spot Bitcoin ETF. Digital X will also work with cryptocurrency focused investment firm 3iQ to promote and distribute the product across Australia and internationally. And I don't not really trusting of 3 IQ. They've been in the news too many times for my liking in ways that I don't like. So I'm just gonna leave it there. It comes just over 3 weeks after the ASX approved Van Eck's spot Bitcoin ETF back on June 15th, which commenced trading on June 20th.
The Van Eck Bitcoin ETF closed its 1st trading day with $1, 300, 000 in volume. Far, far, far below the $450, 000, 000 daily average seen by the 9 United States based spot Bitcoin ETFs across their first 10 trading days. Australian fund manager, BetaShares, is also pursuing a Bitcoin ETF on the ASX according to an April report from Bloomberg. Okay. So what to say about this? Well, just like I don't trust the Democrats and I don't trust the Republicans, I don't trust Australia in general. They need to have done some of the most heinous shit to their own citizenry that I'm fundamentally surprised that they're allowing this shit to roll out.
I'm really I'm actually genuinely surprised that Australia has even allowed this, which tells me pretty much 1 thing. They know nothing's gonna stop the train and they either allow passage for the train and build train tracks in their country for the train to at least spend some time enriching their country or they're just gonna get run over by the fucking train. That's what this tells me. Australia is not a friend to its citizenry. It is has not been a friend at all. And I mean all the way back in the day when they asked the United States Marine Corps, and yes, it was the Marine Corps, to help disarm the Australian people of all of their firearms except for those that had quote unquote a hunting pass or a hunting license to own a particular kind of rifle. But other than that, they disarmed the entire continent of Australia and they did so with the help of the United States Marine Corps.
Bad on you Marine Corps. I wish that you hadn't have done that, but it's been done. It was done decades ago. Well, okay. Like a couple of decades ago. In either event, we're now looking square in the face of the same country that locked their own citizens into, like, I don't know, sick camps during COVID, completely destroying other citizenry's life. They've knocked on people's doors because they've posted stuff during the COVID thing on social media that they didn't like, so they made sure that they came and made sure that the citizenry did, you know, understood that they that's not Kosher, man. And all of a sudden, the very same country is allowing the 2nd spot Bitcoin ETF exchange or ETF onto the ASX.
Again, I only have 1 answer for this, and that is they know nothing stops this train. Not even freaking Germany can stop this train because yesterday, this was actually yes. This was yesterday out of CoinDesk. And more chicanery is going on today. You may be tired of me telling you about Germany, but you're gonna like this 1. I promise. Bitcoin drops as the German government unloads over $900, 000, 000 worth of BTC. This is out of CoinDesk, written by Christian Sandor. Bitcoin fell on Monday afternoon in Europe as the German government transferred over $900, 000, 000 worth of assets from its Bitcoin holdings, blockchain data shows.
According to blockchain data platform, ARCEM Intelligence, Bitcoin wallets labeled as belonging to the German government moved a total of roughly 16 1, 000 Bitcoin in several batches to external addresses including to crypto exchanges Bitstamp, Kraken, Coinbase, and other market makers like Flowtraders and Cumberland DRW. Bitcoin's price dropped 3% to as low as $55, 000 shortly after the last group of blockchain transactions totaling 8, 700 BTC. Later, it rebounded to slightly above 56, 000 but still down 1.2% over the past 24 hours.
The price action came after last week's slide to the lowest price since February. Market observers pointed to a massive supply overhang coming to the market during the relatively quiet and low volume summer season, with the German and US governments apparently selling seized assets just as the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox started to issue repayments. Now I'm pausing to say this. I haven't actually seen the United States government wallet addresses transferring BTC to exchanges. Not lately. Not like we're not not in the same way that we're keeping track of Germany. Alright. Now, that doesn't mean that it's not happening.
It may be. But it is certainly not hitting any headlines that I'm seeing. All I see is Germany doing this, not the United States, which leads me to to believe that I was correct in my yesterday's assumption, that, in fact, that Germany is being told by the United States government to sell their Bitcoin holdings so that the United States government can keep theirs. Now that's just a hunch, a gut feeling, it's probably wrong, but why am I not seeing massive unloading of United States government wallets to exchanges like the gov like the German government? That's a question that that I ponder more often than I probably should. Now, continuing on, with the latest transfers, now this is where you really want to listen up, With the latest transfers, the German government is more than halfway through its selling spree.
With holdings now reduced to 23, 788 BTC worth 1, 300, 000, 000 which is down from it's 50, 000 BTC holding since it started unloading tokens last month according to Arcum Data Okay So they started with 50 ks BTC They've already sold down over half of that. And and that doesn't even include the offloading that we're seeing today, which I'm just gonna say, hey, they're gonna be doing this until they are out of BTC so there's no reason for me to go on. The important part here is that they've already sold over half, and that doesn't include today's offloading by the German government, which they started doing about 4 or 5 well, 6 or 7 hours ago, something like that.
And so now they're down even more. And what happened? Now, you can look at it. I can look at the chart. I'm looking at a price of $57, 737.8, And you'll go, well, clearly it's down. Man, yes, but the the amount that it's down is more due to the selling that occurred before yesterday and honestly the day before the day before that. Okay, most of the most of the action that we saw to the downside has already occurred before the end of last week. And we've been sitting here sucking swamp water since 55 1, 000 all the way down to 53, 000 and we're back up at 57, 000. And yesterday into, like, from the start of the market yesterday to the well even though the market doesn't actually in for bitcoin just general business hours the price of Bitcoin absorbed all of that Bitcoin coming onto the market It's almost like it reminds me of the old tales of the bear whale, where the bear whale just wanted to crash the price of Bitcoin. I think was right around 2, 010, 2011, somewhere around there, kept selling and everybody kept buying. They kept he kept selling and everybody kept buying and there was nothing this asshole could do except lose his bitcoin.
That's all that happened. And it hit this point where it was almost as if there was this infinite sponge just just draining the Bitcoin out of this guy's wallet and the same thing is happening here to Germany Which is why I'm calling this guy the German government the wunder whale. It's the wunder whale, just like the Stadtner. This is the Bundewell. These people are cashing in whatever future the German people could have had. And I I love the German people. Can't stand their government. But then again, I like the French people. Can't stand their government. I like Americans. I can't stand our government. Most of the Canadians I've ever met lovely people can't stand their fucking government. I just it's not the people.
It's the government. And here we have a major government of Europe basically just selling out the birthright of every single German citizen, and most of them don't even know what's happening to them right now. They don't even know what future they could have had. But no. No. We because we've got the German government that's basically taken phone calls from whatever administration in the United States or whatever regulatory agency that's saying, if you don't sell your shit in massive chunks so that we can depress the price of Bitcoin, we're going to do some nasty stuff to you. That's what I really think is happening, and that's why I'm not seeing very many headlines about how much Bitcoin the United States government is selling. I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing it. The only thing that I'm seeing is the future of the German people being drained away. Now, let's move over to China. Let's go a little bit to the far east. And this is out of Bitcoin news and I'm picking this 1 up directly from Noster.
Jingz Bank of China goes under. I can't pronounce the name. Jiangxi. Jiangxi? I'll say that. Jiangxi bank of China goes under. China's banking sector is facing a full scale crisis, and they have been for a while, honestly. But in just 1 week, 40 banks disappeared. I'll say it again. 40 banks in 1 week disappeared because they were absorbed into larger institutions. And today, Changji Bank of China went under, further escalating that crisis. China's smaller banks are struggling with bad loans and exposure to the ongoing property crisis, I e real estate, some 38100 such troubling institutions exist.
They have 55, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 or 7.5 trillion that's trillion with a t dollars if US in assets. 13% of the total banking system, and have long been mismanaged, accruing vast amounts of bad loans. Many have lent to, real estate developers and local governments gaining exposure to China's property crisis. In recent years some have revealed that 40% of their books are made up of non performing loans. Can anybody say the name? Can anybody say the name of the movie? Can anybody say the name of the other movie that was written about what? The financial crisis that happened in 2, 008.
This is exactly the story that preceded the almost complete financial collapse of the world's economy and it's happening again, this time in China. Bank of Xijuan or whatever, a mid tier lender recently revealed that its profits might fall by 30% due to poorly performing loans. This rare disclosure, it's a rare disclosure, highlights the severity of the situation. If you don't know something about China, know this. They are tight lipped about anything bad. They don't like telling anybody that something bad is going on in China and the fact that these guys just did should make your ears prick up. Anyway, the authorities have been pushing for more transparency.
But, the true extent of the bad debt problem is still emerging. The 4 state AMCs created to manage bad debts are now struggling themselves with 1 needing $6, 600, 000, 000 of bailout in the year 2021. China's main way of dealing with small, feeble banks making them disappear. That's how they do it. Of the 40 institutions that vanished recently, 36 were in the Liaoning Province and absorbed into a new lender called Liaoning Rural Commercial Bank, which was created as a receptacle for bad banks. Since it was set up in September, 5 other institutions have been established to do similar work with more expected.
Okay. Pausing. Bear Stearns. Just as a reminder. Bear Stearns, first bank to go under in the financial crisis. What did they try to do as they were trying the weekend that they were trying to save themselves? They were doing something. Do you remember what it was? They wanted to start a new bank, and roll all of the bad debts into that bank. Now, in China, they're not rolling bad debts from 1 bank into an offshoot of that bank. They're rolling entireties of whole banks into a spin off bank. Not just parsing out bad debt on their ledgers into, like, 1 bank doing that. No no no no no. We got 36 banks that got folded into this bullshit receptacle.
Did you do you do you see do you see now it's anyway adding to the complexity banks have been using asset management companies or AMC's to offload toxic loans, creating a facade of stability. And these AMCs buy bad loans but avoid taking on credit risks, leading to a build up of hidden bad debt. The National Administration of Financial Regulation, a new banking regulator, has been cracking down on these practices, issuing fines and increasing oversight. This regulatory vanishing act will probably pick up pace. S and P Global, a rating agency, reckons it will take a decade to complete the project. While fewer big banks are easier to regulate, combining dozens of bad banks only creates bigger badder banks.
The fact remains that the Chinese economy is in an extended and pretend state. Years of credit fueled growth has finally run its course and the result will be lower growth for China and a negative impact on the global economy. Slower growth of the Chinese economy will in turn exacerbate their banking problems too. This will very likely end in massive liquidity injections, read money printing, stimulation of the economy, read money printing, and investors flocking to hard assets, read, bailing out of the fucking sinking ship. China certainly didn't learn from the United States' mistakes.
And, honestly, there was no way they could have learned because this shit was already in play in 2, 008. They had to play it out to its logical conclusion. There was no way they were gonna roll back from where they were, the Chinese banks. There was no way they were gonna roll back where they were or well to where they were, before 2008, during the year 2008. They were all they were a train set upon its tracks and they had to go to the end of the line. They are now at the end of the line. Now, that little blurb in there that said that it could take a decade to complete this particular bad banking consolidation, problem and get it all this project done.
I honestly don't think you're gonna see the end of that project. I think China's in for an implosion. Tomorrow? Don't know. Next year? Don't know. Could it be 10 years? Yeah. I suppose. I just don't expect it to be that way. Let's run the numbers. CNBC futures and commodities and another bad day for Earl. West Texas Intermediate down almost a full point again. $81.55. Brent Norsey down a 1.14% to 84.70 7. Natural gas is also down almost a point to 234. A1000 in gasoline is down a third to $2.53 a gallon. What's going on? Well, everybody, I guess, was hoping that there would be widespread destruction across the Texas coast when hurricane barrel hit and that's what they were pricing in for.
It does not look like a whole lot of damage was actually done. I guess we'll have to wait and see, but as far as oil disruption, all the guys are saying that they're just fine. So since there's no oil disruption, it kinda makes sense that you're seeing the price of oil come back down now that that storm has run its course. Metals are mixed. Gold doing well up a third to $2, 370. Silver is up 2 thirds to $31.10. Platinum is down 1 and a half. Copper is down 0.8%, and palladium is down 3. Agriculture is fully mixed today. The biggest winner is, cocoa. 7.5% to the upside.
Biggest loser today is sugar, 2.38% to the downside. Live cattle down a point. Lean hogs down a point and a quarter. Feeder cattle down a point and a quarter. Those guys are getting just hammered. Dow is down point 6. Actually, everything is running sideways. Let me just say it that way. Except for the s and p mini, which is actually down almost a half point. And why? Well, everybody's waiting for, I guess, Powell to finish saying whatever the hell he's going to say. Clark Moody Bitcoin prices now at $58, 110 and increasing. We have a $1, 150, 000, 000, 000 market cap, and you can now buy 24.8 ounces of your favorite shiny metal rock with your 1 Bitcoin of which there are 19, 000, 000 723, 061.74 of an average fees per block have dropped yet again.
This time, 0.09 BTC taken in fees on average on a per block basis. I feel for the miners out there. I really do. Because now we're seeing price action driven by excel tray or Excel sheets, basically, trading information between each other on the back end. None of none of the market action is actually going through the blockchain right now. Okay? So that means miners are just getting fucking hammered. And again, my heart goes out to the guys, but if you're going to get into mining and you want to be a big bad boy miner instead of thinking about going the other direction and just adding a small amount of hash power because you've got an inline heater for your home's, you know, air handling thing, then you're going to have to deal with this shit.
We have to commoditize mining mining as fast as we possibly can. And it's not that I want the mining industry eviscerated. I don't. I just don't see it as a sustainable for very much longer. And when I mean very much longer, I mean this time I actually mean 10 years and and beyond that. We need more bit acts stuff. We need more people heating their hot tubs up with Bitcoin miners. We need to spread the love because bullshit or love, it's like bullshit and it's no good unless you spread it around. So that's my piece and I'm sticking to it. Now, how many blocks? Oh, a measly 165.
And now we're down to a 180 4, 000 unconfirmed transactions. High priorities, oh man, this is going to cost you. 6 satoshis per v byte. Low priority, 6 satoshis per vbyte. And, anything under 1 and a third satoshi per vbyte is being purged from mempools around the world. And speaking of miners, hash rate is high. 647 exahashes per second, and it was 650 yesterday. So, you know, it it looks like mining is fine, but I guarantee you, mining right now is not fine. And no, I'm not suggesting mining death spiral thud. Okay? I'm just saying that these guys are gonna need to get a new model, and the sooner they work on that shit, the better it's gonna be for everybody. Now, from identity liability, which was the palindrome episode 9/19 of Bitcoin and and this is where I'm going to just start clubbing baby seals.
Clubbing baby seals, clubbing baby seals because there's just nothing here, man. I mean, I got 919 sats from wartime, and I thank wartime. It's not that I the guys that are here, I'm not bitching at you. I'm bitching at everybody that's not in this list. He says, cheers. 02ZX with a row of 7s. It's sort of a striper, a short striper boost. And he says, juiced. God's death with 237 as usual says, thank you sir, no thank you. Bitguss with 200 says, boost in PIES finishes us out. A 100 sats? Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Because you're the baby seal that I will not be clubbing. All of you guys that I just mentioned, you're not gonna be clubbed baby seals. But I'm gonna start clubbing some baby seals if I don't start getting some some serious looking donations over here. Hell, I'm gonna for this show, I'm gonna have 3 lightning addresses running in tandem.
And what that means is that as I can I can go into podhome.fm, which is my hosting company, and I can give them 1 lightning address, which I've, you know, used to use git albie? Now git albi has been relegated to only a percentage of what's coming in through, through zaps and streams and boostograms and whatnot. Because the rest of it is going to my brand new start 9 node. Because I finally got some incoming liquidities from some really solid Joes out there And now I'm going to actually add to those 2 addresses. I'm going to add my old node. So there should be plenty of ability to save the baby seals from clubbing.
And when you see the artwork, you'll know just how much I love baby seals. Okay. Let's see. Is that it? That's it. That's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use Ditto, a Nostr community server. Now, I've talked to you about Ditto before, but I wanted to bring it up again because it looks like Alex Gleeson has his very first solid, stable release of Ditto. Whereas before it was sort of just, hey, come over and test it. So Ditto, d I t t o, is a Nostra server for building resilient communities online. With Ditto, you can create your own social network that is decentralized, customizable, and free from ads and tracking.
It has a built in Nostra Relay, a web UI, and it implements Mastodon's REST API. Quote, it's finally here. After a year of work, I'm pleased to announce the first release of Ditto, announced Alex Gleason in a blog post. Ditto comes with a built in Nostra Relay, a web UI, a user interface. And it implements Mastodon's REST API. It also has moderation features, spam filters, nip05 self-service, quote post, emojis, zaps, you name it. Since Ditto implements the Mastodon API, it can work with any Mastodon app, like Toot or Toodle or whatever it is. The scope of this project is absolutely huge. It aims to take everything that's good about Mastodon and implement it on Noster with none of the downsides, said Gleeson.
Quote, the most important thing about Ditto is the ability for people to freely build, manage and monetize their communities on Nostra. We're launching Ditto with 3 flagship servers to kick start community development. Ditto. Pub is the official flagship server of Ditto, and it's running the latest stable version. There's henhouse.social for women only. Ditto community operated by MK Thane, owner of the largest feminist server on the fediverse. Guys, all I'm asking for you to do is just respect that. Honestly, that's all you gotta do. What I mean respect it, you can laugh. Yeah. Feminists. I I it's okay. What I'm saying is that for the dickheads out there, and there are dickheads out there, there are dickheads everywhere.
Just leave the henhouse.socialalone if you're not a chick. It's pretty simple. It's not that fucking hard. Because you could go to gleasonator. Dev, it's the primary development server for soapbox and ditto, and you can join it to test out all the latest features before they're launched to the public. Now, full blown warning from me. I don't know, hold on, I don't know. I had a my phone ring, so I gotta make sure that that shit's off. So you probably heard the phone ring, but no. Don't worry. It's from Amarillo, Texas. I don't I don't need this shit right now. This warning is for me, and I don't know if ditto was the culprit. It could've been something else.
But there's always been in the history of Nostr that when you try out a new client, sometimes it wipes out your followers. Or actually, the people that you're following, you know, you're curating a list of people because you like what they say. So you add this person and add that person and that's the people that you get in your feed. Yeah, well I've had my entire follow list like literally wiped clean from the face of the earth by the hand of God himself at least 10 times. And I've had to rebuild that following list. Why that happens, I don't know.
It's almost as if when you try out a new client, that somehow or another it overwrites all of the old, you know, relays that you had, and somehow or another that that message, your new relays, and, the the new relays that you're following and the deletion of all your old relays somehow gets propagated through your in pub, through all the other clients. I I don't know exactly how it works, but I did try out Ditto and I did try out and I can't remember what it was. It was another new client and I did it on the same day and that's a really bad nostrilch. And sure enough, my following list got wiped clean from the face of the earth by the hand of God.
And I've had to been I've been rebuilding that. There's other ways to rebuild it. I could have put it together exactly the way that I had it. But I noticed that this was an opportunity for me to rebuild it in a cleaner way, so that's why I'm deciding to do this. So, understand that if you're going to try out a new client, you need to spin up a new insect and a new inpub just for testing purposes. Do not, do not, just don't use and depend on the, Insec, Inpub key pair that you know and love for yourself. Just don't put it in that position to get all of its relays and the followers and all that kind of stuff wiped out. Yes, I know you can put it together but for those people who don't know how to put it back together, just spin up another identity. You the identities are free.
You don't have to pay for a new 1. Okay? So, just use a test identity. But go check out ditto. Okay? Just don't use your your existing standing in pub insect key pair. Okay. I just got off the phone, by the way, this morning. I had an early morning phone call with Oscar Mayer. Oscar Mayer is pretty much the guy behind Fountain app, which is my daily driver. Right? That's my daily podcast driver. I haven't used any podcast 2.0 podcasting mechanism for 5 years now except for fountain. I every once in a while I, you know, I I tried Breeze. The the Breeze Wallet had a has a, oh, a podcast app inside of it. And, I tried it for a little while. I've tried a couple of other ones for a while, but my daily driver is fountain app. I love that thing. And, if you are looking for a modern podcast app, 1 that supports value for value.
1 that supports podcasting 2.0 and all the podcasting 2.0 features like chapters and transcripts and, I don't know, lions and tigers and bears. Oh my. Then you need to actually go get fountain.app. The reason I was talking to Oscar this morning on the phone, actually it was like Google Meet or something like that, was that he has announced a full blown Nostra integration as the social layer for Fountain app. Before this occurred, fountain had its own social layer and they kinda cobbled it together because they were really working on just making sure that the podcast app part worked, but being able to, you know, boost and, stream satoshis and all this the the more social aspect being able to leave comments like boostograms or just comments to other people's boostograms.
That was sort of cobbled together and it looks like what there looks to me like what they're about to do is they're going to shit can that entire layer and just insert the noster layer for its social layer on fountain app. Why do this? Because it makes nothing but sense. Look, guys, for most for most things that we're used to on the interwebs, there is 2 aspects to whatever it is that you're doing. Not everything, but like if like if you're watching videos or you're going to dead bird site or you're using Nostra or you're using Shopify, there's a there's 2 layers.
There is the functional layer, the reason why you're there. Like let's take, Shopster, which is a Nostra based marketplace. Right? You're there to actually buy a thing. Or maybe you were looking for something to buy and you want to pay in Bitcoin. Okay, that's great. That's the functional side of it. There's always another side to these things. Think YouTube. There is the functional layer of being able to upload a video, have people be able to have shuttle controls, which is the ability to rewind, fast forward, play, pause, do all that kind of stuff. But then there's the comment section.
That's the social layer, right? So fountain is no different. Its functional layer is being able to download and play you podcast, allow you to fast forward, rewind, pause, and do all the neat stuff that podcasting 2.0 apps do. But below that is the social layer. Your ability to leave comments, your ability to zap your ability to give boostograms your ability to reply to other people's boostograms on each individual episode Why build it from scratch? We now have the ability to just simply use our nostril key pair for damn near everything that has to have a social layer or that just wants to have a social layer. Hey, you got a new video player out there and you want to add a social layer? Why build it yourself?
Just plug in Nostr. That's what Oscar Mayer and the guys over at Fountain App is doing. Now, it's in beta. Alright? And, it's sort of invitation only. And that doesn't mean that we're special. It just means that I've been using fountain for so fucking long, like, 5 years. I think I I think I told him that, on the phone today or on the call today that I was had been using it for 3 years. I started thinking about it. I've been using fountain for at least 5 years because I remember telling my sister how awesome it was that I could get, street, Satoshi's stream to me on the fountain app and I was able to stream and boost or at least stream Satoshis on the fountain app to these other people.
So the fountain's been around for for like a good long while. And now, they'll think about it. It's possible that I might be overlapping that with my use of breeze. Doesn't matter. The whole point is is that I've used Fountain for so long that I know all of the stuff that it does. I know where all of the things are. I'm a good tester because I'm always using this app every day, many, many times a day. Now, that said, he's got some people, other people that are also using this new version where Noster is the underlying social layer for the fountain app and he says that as we, you know, put in our bugs and, you know, like, hey, don't do this or, you know, my thing's acting funny and they get all that shit sorted out that here in the next week, maybe next to, let's say, I'm gonna say 4 because developers always want to release stuff and then they find something and it's like, oh shit, We can't release it on the day we were released. Let's just say that it's not gonna be the whole 2 weeks TM.
Let's give him 4. He wants to do it within, like, a week to a week and a half to release this to the general public, but let's cut him some slack. Okay? He's just like these, like, they're just a couple of guys over there at fountain.app. But looking at this thing, dude, being able to plug in Nostra as a social layer to whatever it is you're doing, if you're not going to do that moving forward, then you're just rebuilding the wheel every single time. There's no reason for it. You're not paying API access for Nostr You could just you just use the protocol as the social layer I did there's no way that I can really impart why it is that I'm like you're like I you're there's people out there that are going you're you seem awfully excited about this probably a little too excited are you hemorrhaging there Dave no I'm not hemorrhaging I don't think we really understand what this means.
This means that when you build your social layer, it's not only is it a walled garden, you gotta do a lot of work to build it. Whereas, you have a second choice now. You can just use Nostr as your social layer and plug it in. Now, I say that like it's easy. It's not. But it's better than building up the entire social network from scratch, again, only to have it not be able to reach out and talk to other social networks. Nostra takes care of all that shit twice. Once by already being built and you just figure out a way to plug it in. And I'm sure if you ask Oscar how they did it and because you want to do it for your app, maybe he would maybe he'll give you a couple of clues on how that how to do that. Ask Pablo F7Z.
Hit up, Will Cessarin, or Cessarin, I think, is how you pronounce it. You know, the guy jb 55, the guy from Thomas. It it ask hodel bod when he comes back from vacation. How do I insert the protocol as my social layer on this thing? Somebody somewhere will help you. So it fixes the ability it it fix is the problem of you having to build something from scratch. But, second, it's automatically already integrated to all of these other things. Now back in the day of VC funding nobody would like to hear that because then it's like how do we make our money? We've got to keep them in a walled garden. We don't live in that place anymore. And for all of the people that still live in that place anymore, your time is at an end.
I give you 10 years. If you don't understand what it was that I was just talking about and you are putting money into building a thing for the internet for people to interact with, I give your project and you as a developer or a VC guy exactly 10 years of survival left. After that, you're done. So either figure out what it why it is that I'm hemorrhaging nothing but positive feelings about Noster being plugged into these other things or go the way of the dodo Honestly, I can't help you pass that. Because even GitHub may be looking at being obsoleted by noster protocol.
I'm looking at gitworkshop.devgitworkshopalloneword.dev. Never saw it before. But what it is not is a full replacement for GitHub yet. Let me just go through some of this. So, this is again from gitworkshop. Dev. How it works. Git is a decentralized version control system. Yet, most Freedom Tech projects use centralized walled gardens on top of Git as a social and collaboration layer for code changes. Did did if you're harkening back to what it was that I was just talking about inserting nostril as a social layer and you just got reminded of that, good for you. Probably means you're not going to be obsolete at any time soon. So, I'll read it 1 more time. Git is a decentralized version control system, yet most FreedomTech projects use centralized walled gardens on top of Git as a social and collaboration layer for code changes.
Ngitandgitworkshop.dev are tools to enable code collaboration over Nostr. Ngit allows contributors to manage the flow to open a proposal, maintainers to verify proposals and incorporate them into a project. Gitworkshopped. Dev provides a visual interface to discuss proposals and open issues. So what's not actually present yet? An actual code base. Like, like, when I go and I'm looking around git workshop dot dev and and the git workshop. Dev projects, what I'm seeing is stuff like that resembles pull requests, but I'm not actually seeing the code. And that's because that part does not seem to be built in yet.
But, the second that that could be built in, and it's not impossible, but it's not exactly easy either, then we don't have a need for GitHub and Microsoft can go suck swamp water, pound sand, and sit on their fist and spin. Because we won't need GitHub anymore. Again, GitHub, right now, is the thing. The functional layer is where you can put your code and have editable code. The social layer is where you get people to work on that code. To look at the code. To find bugs in the code. To say, 'Hey, I found a bug and it's at line 75 and here's my correction for it and here's the pull request for that.' And, you can go look at the pull request and see if it works yourself. And, if you want to, you can merge the pull request or IE my edit into your code base and now it just works fine because I did the thing and I did it right that's the way GitHub works a repository for code 1 and 2, a social editing layer for that code a testing layer all that stuff. It comprises 2 things like most of the shit we use on the web.
It's 2 things. There's the functional side, the thing that it does, and then there's the social side. And because we have Nostr, we can now plug the social side directly into our thing. The only thing git workshop.dev is missing or this this ecosystem of nostr, ngit, git servers, and git workshop. Dev is a code repository that is editable at the social layer. But, I guarantee you 1 of these days we're going to see that. Again, that's git workshop. Dev. If you're not looking at this stuff and like understanding that this is all the the sailing ships that are on the horizon that are coming our way, then you're gonna be caught with your panties down and nobody wants to be that embarrassed. Especially, well, let's get into this 1. Remember Ray Youssef? He kinda went off the rails and started hating Bitcoin a couple of days, couple of weeks ago?
Well, he left a company that he cofounded, and that company's name is Paxful, p a x f u l. Turns out, he was 100% correct, not in hating Bitcoin, but in getting the hell out of Paxful, because the Paxful other co founder, Shaback, faces 5 years in jail, and it admits to AML failures. Cointelegraph Jesse Coughlin, Paxful co founder and former tech chief, Artur Shaback, is facing a maximum of 5 years in jail after pleading guilty on Monday to conspiring to faith conspiring to fail to maintain an effective anti money laundering program at the crypto exchange, the United States Justice Department said on July 8th that Shabak, the Exchange's forward chief technology officer, was scheduled to be sentenced on November 4th and would resign from Paxful's board. Well, whatever the hell is left to Paxful anyway.
A plea agreement filed the same day in California district court shows government prosecutors agreed to pitch $5, 000, 000 fine, which Shaw back would pay back in 3 installments, 1, 000, 000 by the, date of his guilty plea, 3, 000, 000 by his sentencing, and the final 1, 000, 000 within the next 2 years. An information filing from late March detailing his charges said Schabach and his coconspirator, identified only as Paxful's president and chief executive officer failed to establish an effective AML program within 90 days of starting the business as required under the Bank Secrecy Act. Okay, let's pause.
Because that sounds like they're describing Ray Youssef. Because remember, here's the sentence. They failed to establish an effective AML program within 90 days of starting the business. Well, when the business started, the 2 co founders was this dude, Arthur Schabach and Ray Yousef. So do not be surprised if Ray Yousef has gone off the rails on Twitter you wanna say really started railing against, you know, Bitcoiners and Bitcoin and Bitcoin maximalists because he's mad because he knows he's going down I I don't know that for sure so don't quote me. Alright? I'm just saying that I there was I don't know like there was 3 people involved with Paxful. It's very possible that they may go after Ray Youssef because Ray Youssef was there within the 90 day frame window of not having a competent AML program, which is the charges that these guys are making against Arthur Schrabach, and this other dude who they're saying is, Paxful identified only as Paxful's president and chief executive officer.
Will Ray escape this? I don't know. Somebody check on Ray for me, see if he's still mad about Bitcoin. Anyway, that's what's going on with the old Paxful stuff. Now, let's get into this 1. Finally for the day, Senator Marsha Blackburn is now accepting Bitcoin and crypto donations. Bitcoin Magazine, Nick Hoffman, US senator Marsha Blackburn, a republican from Tennessee, has announced. In a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine that her reelection campaign now accepts cryptocurrency donations. This move comes as Blackburn's campaign recently launched a page dedicated to Bitcoin donations. Our campaign is committed to meeting supporters where they are, said senator Blackburn.
As a growing number of Americans utilize digital currencies for everyday transactions, We are excited to take this next step and stay on the cutting edge of the 21st century digital world. This announcement follows a recent trend of Bitcoin adoption among US politicians. And just yesterday, Blackburn chaired the RNC Platform Committee that passed their 2024 platform draft, committing to defend the right to mine and self custody Bitcoin. Pausing. Remember? That was the first story I read you, so now I'm bookending this son of a bitch with Marsha Blackburn. Earlier this year, Senator Blackburn told Bitcoin Magazine that the freedom and privacy aspects of Bitcoin are a very good thing, While advocating strongly against central bank digital currencies, saying they are spy tools for the governments to use against their citizens.
Senator Blackburn is also set to speak at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville at the end of the month, further signaling her support for Bitcoin. So, there you go. Now, that's gonna be the end of the news and honestly, I've got nothing else to say, except for this. Keep your eye out for the new fountain app, it's coming. And it's gonna they've just flat out replaced their entire social layer with the Noster social layer and it makes sense. And 2, again, keep your eye out for Ray Youssef and see if he's going to go down in this debacle with his old company Paxful. And I think, honestly, I think that's really it except for this whole RNC picking up, you know, picking up bitcoin and saying they're gonna defend bitcoin. I don't trust them. And it's not because I'm not a republican. I'm way more conservative than I than I am socialist. That's for goddamn sure, dude. I was raised in West Texas. How the hell are you not gonna be conservative, right, in either event? I don't trust the Republicans.
I certainly don't trust the Democrats. I don't trust the libertarians either, at least not the political party version of libertarians. The regular guys are okay, the guys that aren't involved in politics. But, like, Green Party guys, I don't trust the Green Party, don't trust Libertarians, don't trust the Democrats, I don't trust the Republicans, and no, I'm not in the middle of the road. And in fact, think I'm gonna walk my happy ass into the forest and get the hell away from the road entirely. 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. Uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 11:11 am. It's a big row of sticks here in the Pacific, inland northwest.
It is the 9th day of July 2024. This is episode 920. 920 of Bitcoin, and I'm entitling it Clubbing Baby Seals. Yeah, you'll see why when you see the album art. If you have a modern podcast app, you'll be able to see the album art. Otherwise, that means that you're using some run of the mill crap like Apple Podcasts And honestly, you really shouldn't be doing that. You should be using a modern podcast app because that way you'll be able to stream these satoshis and give me boost and help keep this show on the air, as it were. Which is why I'm calling today's episode Clubbing Baby Seals because man, the donations for, last show was like dismal. And it made me maybe it's because of Sook. I don't know. But I'm just saying I got people listening and I think that it would be better if more people were listening on a fresh, new, modern podcasting 2.0 app so that you can show your appreciation because we are moving to a value for value landscape more than ever before and faster than I think a lot of people think But the uptake, you know, it it's sort of like this tension. Right? There's this in some cases, people will say value for value is never going to work because it's just too slow on the uptake. Whereas people like me are like going, do you have any idea how fast this shit's moving?
And somewhere in the middle lies the actual truth of how we're going to do media as a world civilization going forward. We can't trust CNN. I mean, I saw stories today that Ukraine is not gonna be allowed into NATO because they're just too corrupt. After we've completely forced them to destroy all of their genetic pool because most of their men are basically dead, there's not a whole lot of breeding stock left and I know that that's a terrible way to go about saying this but we were told that this was that Putin bad, Ukraine good, and now all of a sudden the United States is saying that Ukraine is too corrupt. I don't know who to trust.
The only people that I actually trust now are people that actually have podcasts. And sure, are they gonna get shit wrong? Yeah, but at least they're honest about getting shit wrong. They're not flat ass lying to me because they have some kind of other agenda. Some do. Yeah. That's why I don't listen to shitcoiners and their podcasts because they just want me to buy their bags. But other than that, as we move forward, as a civilization, we're going to always have some form of media. And I don't trust any of the media from Legacy Financial World. I just don't.
So the only option that we have is for the plebs to take control and Pfizer is not going to sponsor us because we are going to tell the truth about Pfizer, right? We're going to say that maybe something ain't right. And therefore you can forget about, you know, any kind of legacy support. All of the support that is going to go to people like me is going to come from plebs and pleb run companies in the future and they're all going to be Bitcoiners. So, there we go. There's that 1. Now, I do have a new guy in the circle p. The circle p is open for business and if you want to support the show and support the people that support the show, then support the vendors in the circle p.
And this guy and let me make sure that I got, Auggie's information up here. Hold on. Hold on. This is Auggie, a u g g I e. And, I believe it's the a u 9913 is going to be 1 of his handles on Nostar. Now this guy, we're still working we're still working the details out, but if you've ever thought about owning cows but you don't have the land, You, like, let's say you're living in a suburban lot and you like the idea of beef and cattle ranching and grazing and all the good things that come along with it. If you wanna own some cows and have them rotationally grazed, And you can pick them up if you get your own farm 1 of these days and get a portion of their offspring and get a prime spot to fish and camp near Kansas City and some sweet wineries, then you need to hit Augie up. Again, it's AU 9913 over on Nostra. I will have a direct link to, his Nostra in the show notes, so don't worry worried about that. You can just hit the link and it will go take you right to it. He's buying a herd of bred heifers and he did that in June.
Now, what he's saying is that there are about $3, 000 to $4, 000 in Bitcoin per head, but there's no ongoing maintenance costs. And as of June 8 were accounted for so far and he had 17 left to buy. So let's just say that he's got 5 or 6 slots left, maybe 10, I don't know. But, if for whatever reason you like the idea of having a cow, being able to get the benefits from that cow, it's in a longer term format, but you're not going to put a cow in your front yard because, you know, Karen down the street is gonna get all freaked out about it, then you're gonna go to a u 9913. That is Auggie.
He's into agroforestry, regenerative agriculture. He under stands low time preference farming probably because he's a Bitcoiner as well. And again, he wouldn't be in the circle p if he wasn't taking Bitcoin because if you're not taking Bitcoin, you ain't in the circle p. Now, let's get on to the Republican National Committee. They're endorsing a pro Bitcoin platform, at least they are so doing in the party draft, and we'll figure out what the hell that means from Nick Hoffman today. A Republican National Committee panel approved a draft of its 2024 party platform and it strongly supports Bitcoin on page 9.
The draft explicitly states, quote, we will defend the right to mine Bitcoin and they actually write the word Bitcoin, not crypto. Okay? They write the word Bitcoin and ensure every American has the right to self custody of their digital assets and transact free from government surveillance and control. Pretty strong statement. Additionally, it promises to end what it calls the Democrats' unlawful and un American crypto crackdown and opposes the creation of a central bank digital currency. According to the Hill, the platform committee overwhelmingly approved the new draft and it will face a vinyl final, not vinyl, a final vote today on Tuesday.
This decision further marks a clear stance by the Republican Party in favor of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency innovation, positioning itself against the current unwelcoming stance by the Biden administration and the Democrats. Oh my god. The Democrat democrats. The draft reflects the growing interest in advocacy for protecting and supporting Bitcoin within the party, aligning with broader trends of Bitcoin adoption and support among various Republican politicians, in May, Donald Trump said he quote, will ensure that the future of crypto and Bitcoin will be made in the USA end quote.
The full approved draft can be read here and of course there's a link to that and if all this story, as well as all the things that I read on The Daily Show, is going to be in the show notes. Full links. And, if you're using a modern podcasting 2.0 app, there's chapters. And I try my best to include all of the links for the actual chapters themselves. So there's at least 2 different ways that you can get a hold of exactly what I'm reading. So if you want to go read the 2024 GOP platform, Make America Great Again, then you'll be able to pick up the link inside the story and the story will be in the show notes with a link. Now, what to say about this?
If you believe for a second that they are all in on protecting Bitcoin because, for Bitcoin's sake, you're fooling yourself. These are politicians. And understand, politicians, no matter what side of the fence you sit on, if you're listening to me and you're a staunch Democrat and you just cannot stand the words of Donald Trump coming out of my mouth, I get it. I get it. And, of course, you'll go, he's lying. I get that too. But if you think the Democrats are, like, anywhere close to being above themselves and not prone to doing the same kind of pandering, you're also wrong. Now, right now, it does not seem like the Democrat party is capable of understanding that we just don't want their money anymore.
But I trust neither side. And most people will say, well, that puts you squarely in the middle of the road and if you don't pick a side, at 1 point or another, you're gonna go squish. I think that that is a complete bullshit way of looking at it. Just because I don't trust the 2 parties that I've been told are the only parties in existence does not, in any way, shape, form, or fashion, put me in the middle of the road. I'm not on the fucking road. I'm walking on a path in the middle of the forest. I got nothing to do with you and your stupid ass Democrat or Republican traffic. I'm sorry. I don't trust either 1 of these guys, but that's what's going on as far as the Republican party draft, which will probably be ratified today, Tuesday. Now, let's go across a couple of oceans over to Australia.
Australia's main stock exchange is going to get their 2nd number 2 spot Bitcoin ETF. Braden Lindria from Cointelegraph, blockchain focused asset manager, DigitalX, has received regulatory approval to launch its spot Bitcoin exchange traded fund, which will become the second Bitcoin ETF to trade on the Australian Securities Exchange. The DigitalX Bitcoin ETF will be listed under the ticker BTXX on July 12th. So that's, what, Friday? I think that that's Friday, let's see. Yep. Friday. So the end of this week, we'll look to see. The approval of, to listbtxx was described as a watershed moment, baby, by its CEO Lisa Wade, quote, the Digital X Bitcoin ETF is a spot ETF product that provides ASX customers with direct access to Bitcoin via a regulated and liquid fund structure. It is exciting to see the growth and development of the digital asset markets reflect in this approval, says Australia's the Digital X's chair, Toby Hicks. Yeah. That's it.
Digital X partnered with the investment management firm K Asset Management to act as the responsible entity and issuer of the spot Bitcoin ETF. Digital X will also work with cryptocurrency focused investment firm 3iQ to promote and distribute the product across Australia and internationally. And I don't not really trusting of 3 IQ. They've been in the news too many times for my liking in ways that I don't like. So I'm just gonna leave it there. It comes just over 3 weeks after the ASX approved Van Eck's spot Bitcoin ETF back on June 15th, which commenced trading on June 20th.
The Van Eck Bitcoin ETF closed its 1st trading day with $1, 300, 000 in volume. Far, far, far below the $450, 000, 000 daily average seen by the 9 United States based spot Bitcoin ETFs across their first 10 trading days. Australian fund manager, BetaShares, is also pursuing a Bitcoin ETF on the ASX according to an April report from Bloomberg. Okay. So what to say about this? Well, just like I don't trust the Democrats and I don't trust the Republicans, I don't trust Australia in general. They need to have done some of the most heinous shit to their own citizenry that I'm fundamentally surprised that they're allowing this shit to roll out.
I'm really I'm actually genuinely surprised that Australia has even allowed this, which tells me pretty much 1 thing. They know nothing's gonna stop the train and they either allow passage for the train and build train tracks in their country for the train to at least spend some time enriching their country or they're just gonna get run over by the fucking train. That's what this tells me. Australia is not a friend to its citizenry. It is has not been a friend at all. And I mean all the way back in the day when they asked the United States Marine Corps, and yes, it was the Marine Corps, to help disarm the Australian people of all of their firearms except for those that had quote unquote a hunting pass or a hunting license to own a particular kind of rifle. But other than that, they disarmed the entire continent of Australia and they did so with the help of the United States Marine Corps.
Bad on you Marine Corps. I wish that you hadn't have done that, but it's been done. It was done decades ago. Well, okay. Like a couple of decades ago. In either event, we're now looking square in the face of the same country that locked their own citizens into, like, I don't know, sick camps during COVID, completely destroying other citizenry's life. They've knocked on people's doors because they've posted stuff during the COVID thing on social media that they didn't like, so they made sure that they came and made sure that the citizenry did, you know, understood that they that's not Kosher, man. And all of a sudden, the very same country is allowing the 2nd spot Bitcoin ETF exchange or ETF onto the ASX.
Again, I only have 1 answer for this, and that is they know nothing stops this train. Not even freaking Germany can stop this train because yesterday, this was actually yes. This was yesterday out of CoinDesk. And more chicanery is going on today. You may be tired of me telling you about Germany, but you're gonna like this 1. I promise. Bitcoin drops as the German government unloads over $900, 000, 000 worth of BTC. This is out of CoinDesk, written by Christian Sandor. Bitcoin fell on Monday afternoon in Europe as the German government transferred over $900, 000, 000 worth of assets from its Bitcoin holdings, blockchain data shows.
According to blockchain data platform, ARCEM Intelligence, Bitcoin wallets labeled as belonging to the German government moved a total of roughly 16 1, 000 Bitcoin in several batches to external addresses including to crypto exchanges Bitstamp, Kraken, Coinbase, and other market makers like Flowtraders and Cumberland DRW. Bitcoin's price dropped 3% to as low as $55, 000 shortly after the last group of blockchain transactions totaling 8, 700 BTC. Later, it rebounded to slightly above 56, 000 but still down 1.2% over the past 24 hours.
The price action came after last week's slide to the lowest price since February. Market observers pointed to a massive supply overhang coming to the market during the relatively quiet and low volume summer season, with the German and US governments apparently selling seized assets just as the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox started to issue repayments. Now I'm pausing to say this. I haven't actually seen the United States government wallet addresses transferring BTC to exchanges. Not lately. Not like we're not not in the same way that we're keeping track of Germany. Alright. Now, that doesn't mean that it's not happening.
It may be. But it is certainly not hitting any headlines that I'm seeing. All I see is Germany doing this, not the United States, which leads me to to believe that I was correct in my yesterday's assumption, that, in fact, that Germany is being told by the United States government to sell their Bitcoin holdings so that the United States government can keep theirs. Now that's just a hunch, a gut feeling, it's probably wrong, but why am I not seeing massive unloading of United States government wallets to exchanges like the gov like the German government? That's a question that that I ponder more often than I probably should. Now, continuing on, with the latest transfers, now this is where you really want to listen up, With the latest transfers, the German government is more than halfway through its selling spree.
With holdings now reduced to 23, 788 BTC worth 1, 300, 000, 000 which is down from it's 50, 000 BTC holding since it started unloading tokens last month according to Arcum Data Okay So they started with 50 ks BTC They've already sold down over half of that. And and that doesn't even include the offloading that we're seeing today, which I'm just gonna say, hey, they're gonna be doing this until they are out of BTC so there's no reason for me to go on. The important part here is that they've already sold over half, and that doesn't include today's offloading by the German government, which they started doing about 4 or 5 well, 6 or 7 hours ago, something like that.
And so now they're down even more. And what happened? Now, you can look at it. I can look at the chart. I'm looking at a price of $57, 737.8, And you'll go, well, clearly it's down. Man, yes, but the the amount that it's down is more due to the selling that occurred before yesterday and honestly the day before the day before that. Okay, most of the most of the action that we saw to the downside has already occurred before the end of last week. And we've been sitting here sucking swamp water since 55 1, 000 all the way down to 53, 000 and we're back up at 57, 000. And yesterday into, like, from the start of the market yesterday to the well even though the market doesn't actually in for bitcoin just general business hours the price of Bitcoin absorbed all of that Bitcoin coming onto the market It's almost like it reminds me of the old tales of the bear whale, where the bear whale just wanted to crash the price of Bitcoin. I think was right around 2, 010, 2011, somewhere around there, kept selling and everybody kept buying. They kept he kept selling and everybody kept buying and there was nothing this asshole could do except lose his bitcoin.
That's all that happened. And it hit this point where it was almost as if there was this infinite sponge just just draining the Bitcoin out of this guy's wallet and the same thing is happening here to Germany Which is why I'm calling this guy the German government the wunder whale. It's the wunder whale, just like the Stadtner. This is the Bundewell. These people are cashing in whatever future the German people could have had. And I I love the German people. Can't stand their government. But then again, I like the French people. Can't stand their government. I like Americans. I can't stand our government. Most of the Canadians I've ever met lovely people can't stand their fucking government. I just it's not the people.
It's the government. And here we have a major government of Europe basically just selling out the birthright of every single German citizen, and most of them don't even know what's happening to them right now. They don't even know what future they could have had. But no. No. We because we've got the German government that's basically taken phone calls from whatever administration in the United States or whatever regulatory agency that's saying, if you don't sell your shit in massive chunks so that we can depress the price of Bitcoin, we're going to do some nasty stuff to you. That's what I really think is happening, and that's why I'm not seeing very many headlines about how much Bitcoin the United States government is selling. I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing it. The only thing that I'm seeing is the future of the German people being drained away. Now, let's move over to China. Let's go a little bit to the far east. And this is out of Bitcoin news and I'm picking this 1 up directly from Noster.
Jingz Bank of China goes under. I can't pronounce the name. Jiangxi. Jiangxi? I'll say that. Jiangxi bank of China goes under. China's banking sector is facing a full scale crisis, and they have been for a while, honestly. But in just 1 week, 40 banks disappeared. I'll say it again. 40 banks in 1 week disappeared because they were absorbed into larger institutions. And today, Changji Bank of China went under, further escalating that crisis. China's smaller banks are struggling with bad loans and exposure to the ongoing property crisis, I e real estate, some 38100 such troubling institutions exist.
They have 55, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 or 7.5 trillion that's trillion with a t dollars if US in assets. 13% of the total banking system, and have long been mismanaged, accruing vast amounts of bad loans. Many have lent to, real estate developers and local governments gaining exposure to China's property crisis. In recent years some have revealed that 40% of their books are made up of non performing loans. Can anybody say the name? Can anybody say the name of the movie? Can anybody say the name of the other movie that was written about what? The financial crisis that happened in 2, 008.
This is exactly the story that preceded the almost complete financial collapse of the world's economy and it's happening again, this time in China. Bank of Xijuan or whatever, a mid tier lender recently revealed that its profits might fall by 30% due to poorly performing loans. This rare disclosure, it's a rare disclosure, highlights the severity of the situation. If you don't know something about China, know this. They are tight lipped about anything bad. They don't like telling anybody that something bad is going on in China and the fact that these guys just did should make your ears prick up. Anyway, the authorities have been pushing for more transparency.
But, the true extent of the bad debt problem is still emerging. The 4 state AMCs created to manage bad debts are now struggling themselves with 1 needing $6, 600, 000, 000 of bailout in the year 2021. China's main way of dealing with small, feeble banks making them disappear. That's how they do it. Of the 40 institutions that vanished recently, 36 were in the Liaoning Province and absorbed into a new lender called Liaoning Rural Commercial Bank, which was created as a receptacle for bad banks. Since it was set up in September, 5 other institutions have been established to do similar work with more expected.
Okay. Pausing. Bear Stearns. Just as a reminder. Bear Stearns, first bank to go under in the financial crisis. What did they try to do as they were trying the weekend that they were trying to save themselves? They were doing something. Do you remember what it was? They wanted to start a new bank, and roll all of the bad debts into that bank. Now, in China, they're not rolling bad debts from 1 bank into an offshoot of that bank. They're rolling entireties of whole banks into a spin off bank. Not just parsing out bad debt on their ledgers into, like, 1 bank doing that. No no no no no. We got 36 banks that got folded into this bullshit receptacle.
Did you do you do you see do you see now it's anyway adding to the complexity banks have been using asset management companies or AMC's to offload toxic loans, creating a facade of stability. And these AMCs buy bad loans but avoid taking on credit risks, leading to a build up of hidden bad debt. The National Administration of Financial Regulation, a new banking regulator, has been cracking down on these practices, issuing fines and increasing oversight. This regulatory vanishing act will probably pick up pace. S and P Global, a rating agency, reckons it will take a decade to complete the project. While fewer big banks are easier to regulate, combining dozens of bad banks only creates bigger badder banks.
The fact remains that the Chinese economy is in an extended and pretend state. Years of credit fueled growth has finally run its course and the result will be lower growth for China and a negative impact on the global economy. Slower growth of the Chinese economy will in turn exacerbate their banking problems too. This will very likely end in massive liquidity injections, read money printing, stimulation of the economy, read money printing, and investors flocking to hard assets, read, bailing out of the fucking sinking ship. China certainly didn't learn from the United States' mistakes.
And, honestly, there was no way they could have learned because this shit was already in play in 2, 008. They had to play it out to its logical conclusion. There was no way they were gonna roll back from where they were, the Chinese banks. There was no way they were gonna roll back where they were or well to where they were, before 2008, during the year 2008. They were all they were a train set upon its tracks and they had to go to the end of the line. They are now at the end of the line. Now, that little blurb in there that said that it could take a decade to complete this particular bad banking consolidation, problem and get it all this project done.
I honestly don't think you're gonna see the end of that project. I think China's in for an implosion. Tomorrow? Don't know. Next year? Don't know. Could it be 10 years? Yeah. I suppose. I just don't expect it to be that way. Let's run the numbers. CNBC futures and commodities and another bad day for Earl. West Texas Intermediate down almost a full point again. $81.55. Brent Norsey down a 1.14% to 84.70 7. Natural gas is also down almost a point to 234. A1000 in gasoline is down a third to $2.53 a gallon. What's going on? Well, everybody, I guess, was hoping that there would be widespread destruction across the Texas coast when hurricane barrel hit and that's what they were pricing in for.
It does not look like a whole lot of damage was actually done. I guess we'll have to wait and see, but as far as oil disruption, all the guys are saying that they're just fine. So since there's no oil disruption, it kinda makes sense that you're seeing the price of oil come back down now that that storm has run its course. Metals are mixed. Gold doing well up a third to $2, 370. Silver is up 2 thirds to $31.10. Platinum is down 1 and a half. Copper is down 0.8%, and palladium is down 3. Agriculture is fully mixed today. The biggest winner is, cocoa. 7.5% to the upside.
Biggest loser today is sugar, 2.38% to the downside. Live cattle down a point. Lean hogs down a point and a quarter. Feeder cattle down a point and a quarter. Those guys are getting just hammered. Dow is down point 6. Actually, everything is running sideways. Let me just say it that way. Except for the s and p mini, which is actually down almost a half point. And why? Well, everybody's waiting for, I guess, Powell to finish saying whatever the hell he's going to say. Clark Moody Bitcoin prices now at $58, 110 and increasing. We have a $1, 150, 000, 000, 000 market cap, and you can now buy 24.8 ounces of your favorite shiny metal rock with your 1 Bitcoin of which there are 19, 000, 000 723, 061.74 of an average fees per block have dropped yet again.
This time, 0.09 BTC taken in fees on average on a per block basis. I feel for the miners out there. I really do. Because now we're seeing price action driven by excel tray or Excel sheets, basically, trading information between each other on the back end. None of none of the market action is actually going through the blockchain right now. Okay? So that means miners are just getting fucking hammered. And again, my heart goes out to the guys, but if you're going to get into mining and you want to be a big bad boy miner instead of thinking about going the other direction and just adding a small amount of hash power because you've got an inline heater for your home's, you know, air handling thing, then you're going to have to deal with this shit.
We have to commoditize mining mining as fast as we possibly can. And it's not that I want the mining industry eviscerated. I don't. I just don't see it as a sustainable for very much longer. And when I mean very much longer, I mean this time I actually mean 10 years and and beyond that. We need more bit acts stuff. We need more people heating their hot tubs up with Bitcoin miners. We need to spread the love because bullshit or love, it's like bullshit and it's no good unless you spread it around. So that's my piece and I'm sticking to it. Now, how many blocks? Oh, a measly 165.
And now we're down to a 180 4, 000 unconfirmed transactions. High priorities, oh man, this is going to cost you. 6 satoshis per v byte. Low priority, 6 satoshis per vbyte. And, anything under 1 and a third satoshi per vbyte is being purged from mempools around the world. And speaking of miners, hash rate is high. 647 exahashes per second, and it was 650 yesterday. So, you know, it it looks like mining is fine, but I guarantee you, mining right now is not fine. And no, I'm not suggesting mining death spiral thud. Okay? I'm just saying that these guys are gonna need to get a new model, and the sooner they work on that shit, the better it's gonna be for everybody. Now, from identity liability, which was the palindrome episode 9/19 of Bitcoin and and this is where I'm going to just start clubbing baby seals.
Clubbing baby seals, clubbing baby seals because there's just nothing here, man. I mean, I got 919 sats from wartime, and I thank wartime. It's not that I the guys that are here, I'm not bitching at you. I'm bitching at everybody that's not in this list. He says, cheers. 02ZX with a row of 7s. It's sort of a striper, a short striper boost. And he says, juiced. God's death with 237 as usual says, thank you sir, no thank you. Bitguss with 200 says, boost in PIES finishes us out. A 100 sats? Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Because you're the baby seal that I will not be clubbing. All of you guys that I just mentioned, you're not gonna be clubbed baby seals. But I'm gonna start clubbing some baby seals if I don't start getting some some serious looking donations over here. Hell, I'm gonna for this show, I'm gonna have 3 lightning addresses running in tandem.
And what that means is that as I can I can go into podhome.fm, which is my hosting company, and I can give them 1 lightning address, which I've, you know, used to use git albie? Now git albi has been relegated to only a percentage of what's coming in through, through zaps and streams and boostograms and whatnot. Because the rest of it is going to my brand new start 9 node. Because I finally got some incoming liquidities from some really solid Joes out there And now I'm going to actually add to those 2 addresses. I'm going to add my old node. So there should be plenty of ability to save the baby seals from clubbing.
And when you see the artwork, you'll know just how much I love baby seals. Okay. Let's see. Is that it? That's it. That's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use Ditto, a Nostr community server. Now, I've talked to you about Ditto before, but I wanted to bring it up again because it looks like Alex Gleeson has his very first solid, stable release of Ditto. Whereas before it was sort of just, hey, come over and test it. So Ditto, d I t t o, is a Nostra server for building resilient communities online. With Ditto, you can create your own social network that is decentralized, customizable, and free from ads and tracking.
It has a built in Nostra Relay, a web UI, and it implements Mastodon's REST API. Quote, it's finally here. After a year of work, I'm pleased to announce the first release of Ditto, announced Alex Gleason in a blog post. Ditto comes with a built in Nostra Relay, a web UI, a user interface. And it implements Mastodon's REST API. It also has moderation features, spam filters, nip05 self-service, quote post, emojis, zaps, you name it. Since Ditto implements the Mastodon API, it can work with any Mastodon app, like Toot or Toodle or whatever it is. The scope of this project is absolutely huge. It aims to take everything that's good about Mastodon and implement it on Noster with none of the downsides, said Gleeson.
Quote, the most important thing about Ditto is the ability for people to freely build, manage and monetize their communities on Nostra. We're launching Ditto with 3 flagship servers to kick start community development. Ditto. Pub is the official flagship server of Ditto, and it's running the latest stable version. There's henhouse.social for women only. Ditto community operated by MK Thane, owner of the largest feminist server on the fediverse. Guys, all I'm asking for you to do is just respect that. Honestly, that's all you gotta do. What I mean respect it, you can laugh. Yeah. Feminists. I I it's okay. What I'm saying is that for the dickheads out there, and there are dickheads out there, there are dickheads everywhere.
Just leave the henhouse.socialalone if you're not a chick. It's pretty simple. It's not that fucking hard. Because you could go to gleasonator. Dev, it's the primary development server for soapbox and ditto, and you can join it to test out all the latest features before they're launched to the public. Now, full blown warning from me. I don't know, hold on, I don't know. I had a my phone ring, so I gotta make sure that that shit's off. So you probably heard the phone ring, but no. Don't worry. It's from Amarillo, Texas. I don't I don't need this shit right now. This warning is for me, and I don't know if ditto was the culprit. It could've been something else.
But there's always been in the history of Nostr that when you try out a new client, sometimes it wipes out your followers. Or actually, the people that you're following, you know, you're curating a list of people because you like what they say. So you add this person and add that person and that's the people that you get in your feed. Yeah, well I've had my entire follow list like literally wiped clean from the face of the earth by the hand of God himself at least 10 times. And I've had to rebuild that following list. Why that happens, I don't know.
It's almost as if when you try out a new client, that somehow or another it overwrites all of the old, you know, relays that you had, and somehow or another that that message, your new relays, and, the the new relays that you're following and the deletion of all your old relays somehow gets propagated through your in pub, through all the other clients. I I don't know exactly how it works, but I did try out Ditto and I did try out and I can't remember what it was. It was another new client and I did it on the same day and that's a really bad nostrilch. And sure enough, my following list got wiped clean from the face of the earth by the hand of God.
And I've had to been I've been rebuilding that. There's other ways to rebuild it. I could have put it together exactly the way that I had it. But I noticed that this was an opportunity for me to rebuild it in a cleaner way, so that's why I'm deciding to do this. So, understand that if you're going to try out a new client, you need to spin up a new insect and a new inpub just for testing purposes. Do not, do not, just don't use and depend on the, Insec, Inpub key pair that you know and love for yourself. Just don't put it in that position to get all of its relays and the followers and all that kind of stuff wiped out. Yes, I know you can put it together but for those people who don't know how to put it back together, just spin up another identity. You the identities are free.
You don't have to pay for a new 1. Okay? So, just use a test identity. But go check out ditto. Okay? Just don't use your your existing standing in pub insect key pair. Okay. I just got off the phone, by the way, this morning. I had an early morning phone call with Oscar Mayer. Oscar Mayer is pretty much the guy behind Fountain app, which is my daily driver. Right? That's my daily podcast driver. I haven't used any podcast 2.0 podcasting mechanism for 5 years now except for fountain. I every once in a while I, you know, I I tried Breeze. The the Breeze Wallet had a has a, oh, a podcast app inside of it. And, I tried it for a little while. I've tried a couple of other ones for a while, but my daily driver is fountain app. I love that thing. And, if you are looking for a modern podcast app, 1 that supports value for value.
1 that supports podcasting 2.0 and all the podcasting 2.0 features like chapters and transcripts and, I don't know, lions and tigers and bears. Oh my. Then you need to actually go get fountain.app. The reason I was talking to Oscar this morning on the phone, actually it was like Google Meet or something like that, was that he has announced a full blown Nostra integration as the social layer for Fountain app. Before this occurred, fountain had its own social layer and they kinda cobbled it together because they were really working on just making sure that the podcast app part worked, but being able to, you know, boost and, stream satoshis and all this the the more social aspect being able to leave comments like boostograms or just comments to other people's boostograms.
That was sort of cobbled together and it looks like what there looks to me like what they're about to do is they're going to shit can that entire layer and just insert the noster layer for its social layer on fountain app. Why do this? Because it makes nothing but sense. Look, guys, for most for most things that we're used to on the interwebs, there is 2 aspects to whatever it is that you're doing. Not everything, but like if like if you're watching videos or you're going to dead bird site or you're using Nostra or you're using Shopify, there's a there's 2 layers.
There is the functional layer, the reason why you're there. Like let's take, Shopster, which is a Nostra based marketplace. Right? You're there to actually buy a thing. Or maybe you were looking for something to buy and you want to pay in Bitcoin. Okay, that's great. That's the functional side of it. There's always another side to these things. Think YouTube. There is the functional layer of being able to upload a video, have people be able to have shuttle controls, which is the ability to rewind, fast forward, play, pause, do all that kind of stuff. But then there's the comment section.
That's the social layer, right? So fountain is no different. Its functional layer is being able to download and play you podcast, allow you to fast forward, rewind, pause, and do all the neat stuff that podcasting 2.0 apps do. But below that is the social layer. Your ability to leave comments, your ability to zap your ability to give boostograms your ability to reply to other people's boostograms on each individual episode Why build it from scratch? We now have the ability to just simply use our nostril key pair for damn near everything that has to have a social layer or that just wants to have a social layer. Hey, you got a new video player out there and you want to add a social layer? Why build it yourself?
Just plug in Nostr. That's what Oscar Mayer and the guys over at Fountain App is doing. Now, it's in beta. Alright? And, it's sort of invitation only. And that doesn't mean that we're special. It just means that I've been using fountain for so fucking long, like, 5 years. I think I I think I told him that, on the phone today or on the call today that I was had been using it for 3 years. I started thinking about it. I've been using fountain for at least 5 years because I remember telling my sister how awesome it was that I could get, street, Satoshi's stream to me on the fountain app and I was able to stream and boost or at least stream Satoshis on the fountain app to these other people.
So the fountain's been around for for like a good long while. And now, they'll think about it. It's possible that I might be overlapping that with my use of breeze. Doesn't matter. The whole point is is that I've used Fountain for so long that I know all of the stuff that it does. I know where all of the things are. I'm a good tester because I'm always using this app every day, many, many times a day. Now, that said, he's got some people, other people that are also using this new version where Noster is the underlying social layer for the fountain app and he says that as we, you know, put in our bugs and, you know, like, hey, don't do this or, you know, my thing's acting funny and they get all that shit sorted out that here in the next week, maybe next to, let's say, I'm gonna say 4 because developers always want to release stuff and then they find something and it's like, oh shit, We can't release it on the day we were released. Let's just say that it's not gonna be the whole 2 weeks TM.
Let's give him 4. He wants to do it within, like, a week to a week and a half to release this to the general public, but let's cut him some slack. Okay? He's just like these, like, they're just a couple of guys over there at fountain.app. But looking at this thing, dude, being able to plug in Nostra as a social layer to whatever it is you're doing, if you're not going to do that moving forward, then you're just rebuilding the wheel every single time. There's no reason for it. You're not paying API access for Nostr You could just you just use the protocol as the social layer I did there's no way that I can really impart why it is that I'm like you're like I you're there's people out there that are going you're you seem awfully excited about this probably a little too excited are you hemorrhaging there Dave no I'm not hemorrhaging I don't think we really understand what this means.
This means that when you build your social layer, it's not only is it a walled garden, you gotta do a lot of work to build it. Whereas, you have a second choice now. You can just use Nostr as your social layer and plug it in. Now, I say that like it's easy. It's not. But it's better than building up the entire social network from scratch, again, only to have it not be able to reach out and talk to other social networks. Nostra takes care of all that shit twice. Once by already being built and you just figure out a way to plug it in. And I'm sure if you ask Oscar how they did it and because you want to do it for your app, maybe he would maybe he'll give you a couple of clues on how that how to do that. Ask Pablo F7Z.
Hit up, Will Cessarin, or Cessarin, I think, is how you pronounce it. You know, the guy jb 55, the guy from Thomas. It it ask hodel bod when he comes back from vacation. How do I insert the protocol as my social layer on this thing? Somebody somewhere will help you. So it fixes the ability it it fix is the problem of you having to build something from scratch. But, second, it's automatically already integrated to all of these other things. Now back in the day of VC funding nobody would like to hear that because then it's like how do we make our money? We've got to keep them in a walled garden. We don't live in that place anymore. And for all of the people that still live in that place anymore, your time is at an end.
I give you 10 years. If you don't understand what it was that I was just talking about and you are putting money into building a thing for the internet for people to interact with, I give your project and you as a developer or a VC guy exactly 10 years of survival left. After that, you're done. So either figure out what it why it is that I'm hemorrhaging nothing but positive feelings about Noster being plugged into these other things or go the way of the dodo Honestly, I can't help you pass that. Because even GitHub may be looking at being obsoleted by noster protocol.
I'm looking at gitworkshop.devgitworkshopalloneword.dev. Never saw it before. But what it is not is a full replacement for GitHub yet. Let me just go through some of this. So, this is again from gitworkshop. Dev. How it works. Git is a decentralized version control system. Yet, most Freedom Tech projects use centralized walled gardens on top of Git as a social and collaboration layer for code changes. Did did if you're harkening back to what it was that I was just talking about inserting nostril as a social layer and you just got reminded of that, good for you. Probably means you're not going to be obsolete at any time soon. So, I'll read it 1 more time. Git is a decentralized version control system, yet most FreedomTech projects use centralized walled gardens on top of Git as a social and collaboration layer for code changes.
Ngitandgitworkshop.dev are tools to enable code collaboration over Nostr. Ngit allows contributors to manage the flow to open a proposal, maintainers to verify proposals and incorporate them into a project. Gitworkshopped. Dev provides a visual interface to discuss proposals and open issues. So what's not actually present yet? An actual code base. Like, like, when I go and I'm looking around git workshop dot dev and and the git workshop. Dev projects, what I'm seeing is stuff like that resembles pull requests, but I'm not actually seeing the code. And that's because that part does not seem to be built in yet.
But, the second that that could be built in, and it's not impossible, but it's not exactly easy either, then we don't have a need for GitHub and Microsoft can go suck swamp water, pound sand, and sit on their fist and spin. Because we won't need GitHub anymore. Again, GitHub, right now, is the thing. The functional layer is where you can put your code and have editable code. The social layer is where you get people to work on that code. To look at the code. To find bugs in the code. To say, 'Hey, I found a bug and it's at line 75 and here's my correction for it and here's the pull request for that.' And, you can go look at the pull request and see if it works yourself. And, if you want to, you can merge the pull request or IE my edit into your code base and now it just works fine because I did the thing and I did it right that's the way GitHub works a repository for code 1 and 2, a social editing layer for that code a testing layer all that stuff. It comprises 2 things like most of the shit we use on the web.
It's 2 things. There's the functional side, the thing that it does, and then there's the social side. And because we have Nostr, we can now plug the social side directly into our thing. The only thing git workshop.dev is missing or this this ecosystem of nostr, ngit, git servers, and git workshop. Dev is a code repository that is editable at the social layer. But, I guarantee you 1 of these days we're going to see that. Again, that's git workshop. Dev. If you're not looking at this stuff and like understanding that this is all the the sailing ships that are on the horizon that are coming our way, then you're gonna be caught with your panties down and nobody wants to be that embarrassed. Especially, well, let's get into this 1. Remember Ray Youssef? He kinda went off the rails and started hating Bitcoin a couple of days, couple of weeks ago?
Well, he left a company that he cofounded, and that company's name is Paxful, p a x f u l. Turns out, he was 100% correct, not in hating Bitcoin, but in getting the hell out of Paxful, because the Paxful other co founder, Shaback, faces 5 years in jail, and it admits to AML failures. Cointelegraph Jesse Coughlin, Paxful co founder and former tech chief, Artur Shaback, is facing a maximum of 5 years in jail after pleading guilty on Monday to conspiring to faith conspiring to fail to maintain an effective anti money laundering program at the crypto exchange, the United States Justice Department said on July 8th that Shabak, the Exchange's forward chief technology officer, was scheduled to be sentenced on November 4th and would resign from Paxful's board. Well, whatever the hell is left to Paxful anyway.
A plea agreement filed the same day in California district court shows government prosecutors agreed to pitch $5, 000, 000 fine, which Shaw back would pay back in 3 installments, 1, 000, 000 by the, date of his guilty plea, 3, 000, 000 by his sentencing, and the final 1, 000, 000 within the next 2 years. An information filing from late March detailing his charges said Schabach and his coconspirator, identified only as Paxful's president and chief executive officer failed to establish an effective AML program within 90 days of starting the business as required under the Bank Secrecy Act. Okay, let's pause.
Because that sounds like they're describing Ray Youssef. Because remember, here's the sentence. They failed to establish an effective AML program within 90 days of starting the business. Well, when the business started, the 2 co founders was this dude, Arthur Schabach and Ray Yousef. So do not be surprised if Ray Yousef has gone off the rails on Twitter you wanna say really started railing against, you know, Bitcoiners and Bitcoin and Bitcoin maximalists because he's mad because he knows he's going down I I don't know that for sure so don't quote me. Alright? I'm just saying that I there was I don't know like there was 3 people involved with Paxful. It's very possible that they may go after Ray Youssef because Ray Youssef was there within the 90 day frame window of not having a competent AML program, which is the charges that these guys are making against Arthur Schrabach, and this other dude who they're saying is, Paxful identified only as Paxful's president and chief executive officer.
Will Ray escape this? I don't know. Somebody check on Ray for me, see if he's still mad about Bitcoin. Anyway, that's what's going on with the old Paxful stuff. Now, let's get into this 1. Finally for the day, Senator Marsha Blackburn is now accepting Bitcoin and crypto donations. Bitcoin Magazine, Nick Hoffman, US senator Marsha Blackburn, a republican from Tennessee, has announced. In a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine that her reelection campaign now accepts cryptocurrency donations. This move comes as Blackburn's campaign recently launched a page dedicated to Bitcoin donations. Our campaign is committed to meeting supporters where they are, said senator Blackburn.
As a growing number of Americans utilize digital currencies for everyday transactions, We are excited to take this next step and stay on the cutting edge of the 21st century digital world. This announcement follows a recent trend of Bitcoin adoption among US politicians. And just yesterday, Blackburn chaired the RNC Platform Committee that passed their 2024 platform draft, committing to defend the right to mine and self custody Bitcoin. Pausing. Remember? That was the first story I read you, so now I'm bookending this son of a bitch with Marsha Blackburn. Earlier this year, Senator Blackburn told Bitcoin Magazine that the freedom and privacy aspects of Bitcoin are a very good thing, While advocating strongly against central bank digital currencies, saying they are spy tools for the governments to use against their citizens.
Senator Blackburn is also set to speak at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville at the end of the month, further signaling her support for Bitcoin. So, there you go. Now, that's gonna be the end of the news and honestly, I've got nothing else to say, except for this. Keep your eye out for the new fountain app, it's coming. And it's gonna they've just flat out replaced their entire social layer with the Noster social layer and it makes sense. And 2, again, keep your eye out for Ray Youssef and see if he's going to go down in this debacle with his old company Paxful. And I think, honestly, I think that's really it except for this whole RNC picking up, you know, picking up bitcoin and saying they're gonna defend bitcoin. I don't trust them. And it's not because I'm not a republican. I'm way more conservative than I than I am socialist. That's for goddamn sure, dude. I was raised in West Texas. How the hell are you not gonna be conservative, right, in either event? I don't trust the Republicans.
I certainly don't trust the Democrats. I don't trust the libertarians either, at least not the political party version of libertarians. The regular guys are okay, the guys that aren't involved in politics. But, like, Green Party guys, I don't trust the Green Party, don't trust Libertarians, don't trust the Democrats, I don't trust the Republicans, and no, I'm not in the middle of the road. And in fact, think I'm gonna walk my happy ass into the forest and get the hell away from the road entirely. I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.
Market Update and Mining Challenges
Fountain App's Nostr Integration
Closing Remarks
