Join me today for Episode 893 of Bitcoin And . . . is LIVE!
Topics for today:
- Robinhood Gets Their Wells Notice
- 1 Billion Bitcoin Transactions
- Grayscale Stopped Bleeding Out
- NosDrive Announced
- Jack Dorsey Doing All The Things
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
Circle P:
npub: npub1ugnq57hn8va6xqr5zywy2eunem6c624583vkt0dmv40ep7tnnxkqrr898l (faster)
email: [email protected] (slower)
Product: Comfrey
One full root for 20$
Or root cutting for 1$ each
Buyer pays shipping
[[Episode 726]]
Articles:
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/robinhood-crypto-gets-wells-notice-us-sec-2024-05-06/
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-1-billion-transactions
https://decrypt.co/229415/grayscale-bitcoin-etf-snaps-losing-streak-pulls-in-63-million
https://nosdrive.app/
- 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://swarmstr.com/
https://www.btctimes.com/news/jack-dorsey-commits-21-million-to-bitcoin-development-efforts
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/block-to-invest-10-of-bitcoin-profits-into-btc-each-month/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/jack-dorsey-block-raise-1-5-billion-senior-notes-offering
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/spiral-renews-grants-to-bitcoin-zavior-matt-morehouse/
Find the Bitcoin And Podcast on every podcast app here:
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npub1vwymuey3u7mf860ndrkw3r7dz30s0srg6tqmhtjzg7umtm6rn5eq2qzugd (npub)
6389be6491e7b693e9f368ece88fcd145f07c068d2c1bbae4247b9b5ef439d32 (Hex)
Twitter:
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Music by:
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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 12 o'clock on the dot PM Pacific Daylight Time. It is the 6th day of May 2024.
This is episode 893 of Bitcoin. And the circle p vendor of choice today is XiXi 21 m. His in pub for Nostra will be in the show notes. I don't think he's actually on Twitter anymore. I certainly do not have a Twitter handle for him. But what does he sell? He sells confre routes. And he will ship them to you. Not only will he ship them to you, he will take your Bitcoin and trade for his comfrey roots. And you want comfrey in your yard. I have done an entire half show about that. It is episode 726 of Bitcoin and again that is 726, episode 726.
It's all about comfrey. You listen to that and you will have a deep deep deep understanding of why you want this plant in your garden. It's a perennial. Once you plant it, you'll never get rid of it. And because these plants are sterile, they only grow where they're planted. They do not spread. If you want them to spread, go listen to episode 726. And, yes, you want them to spread. I'm just saying medicine, let's see. What else does it do? It's a good medicine for scrapes, bruises, light cuts. You don't want to do deep cuts because it heals so well that it will actually heal the cut, from the top down wherever it's contacted. And, yeah, you don't want that. You don't want you you don't want to use it on deep cuts. But bruises, sprangs, scrapes, abrasions, poison ivy, poison oak, that kind you know, rashes and stuff works really, really well for that.
Also, it is one of the plants that produces the most biomass. In fact, it is arguable. Yet there there's an argument to be made that it is the plant the best plant on the face of the earth to give the most biomass per acre, per year, every year, year over year, and it just keeps getting better. Now, you can get all of this and pay for pay for it with bitcoin from she she 21m atprotonmail.com. If you want to email him that is s h I s h I 21m@protonmail dotcom or get a hold of him on Nostr. Again, his inpub will be in the show notes and you can just find any Nostr client, plug in the NPUB and you'll find Chi Chi. Tell him I sent you that he's part of the circle. Or he knows he's part of the circle p, but tell him that you heard it in the circle p because he will give me a cut of any proceeds that he gets and you want to get this plant. Again, this plant is permanent. You buy it once dudes, So it's totally totally worth it. Alright. Let's see. Where am I at here? I'm gonna take this and I'm gonna go over here. And we're gonna start with the news.
The bad news. Because there's always bad news. It's Monday. Did you think you were gonna get off lightly? No, I don't think so. Buddy boy, Robinhood Crypto just got a Wells notice from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. So if you wanted to know why we started out the day in the morning, depending on where you are in the world with some, red candles, this is probably why. Now they got the notice on March on May 4th be with you, but they actually the news just broke about it this morning. Here's what we got so far. This is out of Reuters retail trading platform Robinhood Markets said on Monday that it has indeed received an enforcement action from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on May 4th over crypto tokens traded on its platform. Now, this is specifically about crypto.
I don't think this Wells notice has much to do with the debacle that was going down with GameStop and AMC, you know, when they took the when they took the buy button away from everybody and all you could do was sell it because all the people that were shorting those companies were losing their ever loving minds. Where all of that market manipulation should have caused a Wells notice. No. No. No. No. No. This is about crypto. The company said that it received a so called Wells notice, which the SEC issues when it's planning to bring law enforcement actions against people. Such notices do not necessarily mean the company has engaged in wrongdoing, however. Quote, we firmly believe that the assets listed on our platform are not securities.
And we look forward to engaging with the SEC to make clear just how weak any case against Robinhood crypto would be, Dan Gallagher, chief legal compliance and corporate affairs officer at Robinhood said the SEC has adopted a tough stance toward the digital currency industry, yeah, arguing most cryptocurrency tokens are securities and subject to its registration rules, while crypto firms have accused it of overreach. Now the regulator declined to comment on the enforcement action notice. Coinbase, the world's largest publicly traded cryptocurrency exchanges, also previously argued the crypto assets, unlike stock and bonds, do not meet the definition of securities.
Bullshit. A position held by the vast majority of the crypto industry. Yeah. That's because the vast majority of the crypto industry is engaged in selling people unregistered securities. Let's just be clear about that. Now the SEC is engaged in a legal fight against Coinbase and last year it said that the crypto exchange facilitated trading of at least 13 crypto tokens that should have been registered with the SEC as securities. Robinhood enables customers to deposit and withdraw cryptocurrencies to and from its custodial platform and also routes customer orders to liquidity providers based on the lowest price.
It has been attempting for nearly 2 years to register with the SEC. Last year, it removed digital tokens, Solana, Cardano and Polygon from its platform. So in trying to comply comply with the SEC, the Robinhood gets paid with a Wells notice. We're going to take action against you. It's a Wells notice. So there's 2 things at work here. 1, this I do not like I said before, I do not believe this has anything to do with GameStop in the short selling that we saw while the pandemic was in full force. 2nd, the issue here is that cryptocurrencies, the vast majority of them are indeed unregistered securities.
They all passed the Howie test, except for Bitcoin. And it's possible, possible, maybe a couple of others don't. I'm not even gonna mention their names. But 99.99 percent of all this garbage are unregistered securities. So why is the SEC just now engaging in all this? Well, the United States federal government is firmly in the then they fight you phase. So here's what I ask is that all Bitcoin developers, lightning developers, eCash developers do the following: Stop using your real name. 2, stop trying to build companies around it to make money. I know that that is ridiculous.
People have to feed themselves, they have to pay the bills. I get it. I get it. We're going to have to develop a completely new model. It's going to have to be some kind of value for value model. And it cannot be based on sending checks to an address or making a phone call to a phone over it. I don't know, like Cal, you know, CaliZcash or Cashew wallet. It can't be a you cannot give away your sniping position. Right? I that's what I look at at when I see developers in this space, what I see are snipers that are basically taking pop shots and doing a lot of damage to the beast. But when you give your position away an email address, a snail mail address, a phone number, an address that you can go knock on the door then you're going to get a Wells notice. You're going to be arrested by the FBI.
You're going to go to court. That's the way that the Beast is playing its game now because it's backed into a corner and this is where the claws come out in fast and furious ways. You don't want to have nothing to do with a cornered animal and this animal is 100 percent cornered. We have to keep our distance and start blowing its head off from far far far away and from deep deep deep within blinds. Do not be seen. Do not use your real name. Do not have an office. Do not if anybody works for you, figure out a way that it's not under a corporate structure because those corporate and company structures, LLCs, doing DBAs or doing business as all of that shit has always been designed to put a location on the sniper.
Don't use it. Get as far away from it as you can. Robin Hood, I don't know what's gonna happen to him but we've got other fish to fry. We've got, in fact, 1,000,000,000 fish to fry. Bitcoin network tops 1,000,000,000 in total transactions processed. Bitcoin Magazine, Vivec Sine. The Bitcoin network has reached a major milestone processing its 1,000,000,000 transaction yesterday, an achievement comes that achievement comes 15 years 4 months after Bitcoin's genesis block was mined, January 3rd 2009. At an average rate of a 178,475 transactions per day over its 5,603 day lifespan so far, Bitcoin has demonstrated the ability to handle significant volume securely without any centralized intermediaries whatsoever.
Many early critics argued nobody would use Bitcoin. But today, the network handles daily transaction volumes on par with major payment giants. This milestone also comes on the heels of Bitcoin's recent all time high above $73,000 in March. The excitement around the latest halving event and new protocols like, oh god, ordinals and ruins have driven surges in network activity. All told, April 23rd saw a single day transaction record of above 926,000 transactions and while volume has moderated from those highs, Bitcoin continues averaging 600,000 plus transactions in May of 2024 alone By reliably facilitating 1,000,000,000 transactions in just 15 years, Bitcoin has proven its resilience and capacity at scale. And with accelerating adoption, Bitcoin appears poised to reach the next 1000000000 transactions at an even faster pace.
So 1,000,000,000 transactions. Congratulations, everybody. Madames and monsieurs, you did well. Good job. Grayscale is finally finally figuring it out. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe they'll we'll maybe we'll find out something about grayscale's fees in this particular piece written by Ryan Ozawa out of decrypt. Grayscale Bitcoin ETF snaps its losing streak and actually pulls in $63,000,000 Amazing, isn't it? The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF finally drew in more new cash than it lost, snapping an 11 week streak with a positive gain of $63,000,000 according to Coin Glass. Congratulations.
GBTC has been, seen so many investors cashing out since, competing spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved in January. Its outflows alone often weighed down the entire nascent space. Quote, holy crap. GBTC had inflows today, tweeted Eric Balchunas on Twitter. Their 80 day ish streak is finally over. I had to run my eyes and double check the data, but it's true. He added, on a scale of 1-ten, how we're so back is this? Oh, for God's sakes. GBTC is still the largest Bitcoin spot ETF with over $18,700,000,000 in asset under management coupled with about 297,000 Bitcoin but constant outflows allowed newer competitors to close the gap, and the BlackRock ishares bitcoin trust, iBit, has $17,200,000,000 of assets under management on Tuesday. So there you go.
GBTC finally had a net positive day. I mean, what was it? What what did the piece say 80 days? 80 days of total loss. Just nothing but outflows 80 straight days starting January 11th was the I mean they it was just immediate sell on GBTC. Now finally, they finally reversed it. How will that hold? Well, I don't know. See, the Wells notice is still causing some red candles. So we'll have to see what GBTC does today, but at least they finally snapped the solid losing streak. Okay, all right. So, that's pretty much it for the majority of the major pieces of the news. I've got this show divided up into 2 two places. I've got some other news, but I wanna put this other news kinda collapse it all together on the back end. So we're not quite done yet. But before we go to the numbers, NostraV.
Your NostraVents on Google Drive. No, no, no, this isn't an advertisement. I want to show y'all this. Alright, so here is for the guys over in zap. Stream realjoad, says good evening. Good good evening, sir. I'm glad to to see you here. I saw this, and I cannot god. I can't I think it was Alex Gleeson brought this to my attention on Noster, and then, of course, a couple of other people did too. But I'm pretty sure it was Alex Gleeson of Activity Pub Pub fame that brought this to my attention. Yes, what's going on here is that your Google Drive, not my Google Drive, not anybody else's Google Drive, If you've got an inpub, Nos drive allows you to cannibalize or parasitize your Google Drive to act as a storage medium and a relay. It kinda, NAS drive kinda connects your Google Drive with a relay and your InPub so that whenever it is that you write a note that note is copied through the relay back to your Google Drive.
Not to my Google Drive, not to Alex Gleeson's Google Drive your Google Drive. And of course, why would you do this? It's Google Drive. I mean, my God, Google is is all kinds of evil. I don't think that this is what people think it is. Let me just kind of break it down for just just a sec. In the screen you see it's you can for those not looking it is nosdrive. App or nosdrive. Appnos drive. App. And if you've got a Google Drive, you can log in with your Google stuff and then pop in your NPUB into nosdrive. App and it will set it up for you. It like, if you've got Google Drive. Right? Okay. So that said, that's what people are looking at is my my shit over here, the way that I set up nos drive dot app. It just says that my my nos drive is connected. But up here in the upper right corner, it shows my, the emblem or the, oh god, the icon that I use for my Google account.
Because I do log into a bunch of a bunch of stuff in my Google account but I try not to log into anything that you know that means a whole lot to me and like I will test stuff with with my Google login, except Google Mail. I have to I have to log in to Google to get my Google Mail. In either event, what's going on is that now every time I send a note in whatever client that I'm using, I of course I make sure that I've got relay nosdrive.appforward/relay. That's the address for the relay. Nosdrive.appforward/relay. If I've got that in my client's relay list and I'm logged in to my Nostra client and I'm logged in to my my Google Drive well, actually, I don't have to be logged in to my Google Drive once it's all set up. It just does it. But if I'm logged into my Google Drive, every time I send a note, that note gets copied to my Google Drive. The entire event, All the metadata that's around it. Time it was sent, what the message was, all kinds of stuff.
And one of the first pieces of pushback that I got when I put this back out on Noster to, you know, kind of boost its, boost its visibility was why would I do that? Fair question, brother. So let's look at it from my point of view. Do I need this? No, not really. Is it good to have in a way? Kind of. Only because it backs up all my notes directly to my own Google Drive, which I have access to. And technically speaking nobody else does, but let's we'll we'll keep the the fact that that's kind of bullshit, I I don't trust Google at all. So now all my notes are are in my Google Drive. At least the ones that I've written since I made the attachment of my NPUB to my Google Drive. If something were to happen, I would have a copy of all my notes directly on my own Google Drive.
Okay, so that's sort of why you want it so that you can make sure that you safeguard it in case worst case scenario happens, right? I don't trust Google. But what I find the most fascinating part about this entire thing is this it's not as much that I have the ability to cache my notes that I send on Nostr directly to my Google Drive, which I have full control over. It's the fact that it was done in the first place that somebody figured out how to parasitize the legacy digital data storage system. This is where I'm going I think that it is necessary now to wrap the tendrils of Nostr and Bitcoin and e cash and Lightning Network and all the freedom tech that you can imagine and think of it as Digestive tendrils that we wrap around the dead and the dying to ingest them And there's a saying for there's a saying that kind of, better illustrates this. Let me see if I can bring this, bring this up. Hold out for a second.
And this is gonna be a better way to say it. We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own Resistance is futile Now that's what this is. This is us cannibalizing and everything legacy and forcing it forcing it. We're adding their technological distinctiveness to our own. We are trapping them. We are cannibalizing them. We are carving little bits and pieces off of their bodies and we are doing with that material what ever we wish to Early stages.
Can it backfire? Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't trust Google with with my data at all. But the fact that we were able to turn a Google Drive into a storage device for something that I do think matters Noster that is a that is a warning shot across the bow of legacy digital bullshit. Alright? So that's why it's important. Okay. Let's run the numbers. CNBC Futures and Commodities West Texas Intermediate is up after taking a hammering over the weekend and the end of last week. It is up 3 quarters of a point to $78.70 Brent Norcia is likewise up 2 thirds of a point to $83.52.
Natural gas is up 2.8 percent to $2.20 a 1,000 cubic feet. Wow. It hasn't been this high in quite a while. Gasoline is up 1.3 percent to $2.58 a gallon. All the shiny metal rocks are doing well. Gold is doing very well as is silver. Gold is up 1.15%. Silver is up 3.78 percent to $27.7.70. Wow. Platinum is up slightly. Copper is up 1.1. Palladium is up 3.8%. Let's get into the dashboard already here. I don't even give a shit about what legacy markets are doing. $63,000 and what no. $63,050 for a price of 1 Bitcoin. That is $1,240,000,000,000 of market cap. You can purchase 27.3 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your 1 Bitcoin of which there are 19,000,000 694,661 and, 7.74 BTC in circulation at the time. A third of a BTC is being taken for average fees on a per block basis.
I think that's yeah, that should do it for that. Let's get into the mempool and find out what idiocy is going on here. Wow, we're back up. 242 blocks are carrying close to 200,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 34 satoshis per vbyte. Low priority, 28 satoshis per vbyte. Gonna get you in. And anything under 5.5 is gonna be purged from mempools around the world. 589.2 exahashes per second is what I'm getting for the average hash rate out of mempool. Spacemining. And from Kings Cross, episode 892 of Bitcoin and, nat natural gas or nat gas immersion boosted me a big row of sticks, 11,111 sats, full row of sticks, full palindrome. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you is what I say for what he said. Letter 6173 boosted 5,000 said nothing. DeBravco was 1690 said, quote, any tool to be used against organized criminals will eventually be used against the populace. Yes. It will. And he also he goes on to say also the United States is pulling the same truck they used on the indigenous people.
Starve them out. Yeah, I've thought about that a lot lately man. PIES with 420 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. God's death with 3:30 7 says thank you sir, no thank you. And our Amim Amimiram says with a 100 says always appreciate your content. Thanks for what you do. I appreciate that. The bird with a 100 says, what's the donation page to help them? He's talking about the King Ranch. There is no donation page as of yet. I will talk to their lawyer about it at one point or another, but don't don't, you know, hold your breath. Cross your fingers, but don't hold your breath.
Way to legacy. They are in the middle of the shit right now. Well, I will ask her if there's something that we can do on our end, but she is not. I guarantee she does not have the time to mitigate learning a new technology. So just again, don't hold your breath, but cross your fingers. Pies with a 100 says you can absolutely read my boost from the last show. Okay. Let's go do that because it's a bit personal, but if he said it's okay, I want to make sure that I am doing my bit for King and Country here. Good Lord. Come on, man. It may not even do it for me. Let's go over here and from Inditis All.
I've got I've got where is he? Where is he? He's down. Okay. So back on indict us all, which was was episode 891 of Bitcoin and, Pai's boosted 420 and says, I've done some serious state time. While I have corrected my life since and it was many years ago and never went to see the inside of a jail cell ever again, If you told me that I could do 3 years for $1,300,000,000 I would do it standing on my head shackled 23 hours a day in solitary confinement with one stipulation. It had to be paid in BTC at the price of the day I start my sentence. So that's why I didn't want to just blurt it out there because I, you know, trying to be proper and respectful to the people that are giving me their time, talent and treasure, which I asked for again today.
The only way this works going forward, not just for the podcasters, but I think I I think for all of us in this space, we're gonna have to switch to value for value. So if you think that what I do has value, then value it the way that you think it should be valued. Just use satoshis. Send me boostograms. Or, you know, if you're sending like just once, you know, 10 sats, a minute on streaming through a podcasting 2.0 application, then make it 20 or 50 or something like that. Whatever it is that you think that it has value. If it has value, it's your determination as to what that value is, not mine. I'm not gonna suggest a minimum, you know, a minimum donation.
That's just stupid. It's whatever you think. So all what I have to do is make a premium product and I honestly think that I'm not there yet. I really do. I believe that I'm not at premium product yet and I can tell by the donations because they're below. They just are. I The only thing that I can do about that is to figure out why I'm not bringing you the value that I think I should be bringing you because I'm not seeing it coming in on the other side. That's not really a bitch fest. That is that's one of the ways that value for value works. By basically having, you know, a trickle of satoshis come out the other end of the pipe, I have to wonder, what am I not doing?
What am I not doing for y'all that would say this is high value? This is a 100,000 sat boost. This is a 150,000 sat boost. When I get there, I know I'm at premium product. So it works in the value for value model works in so many ways. It it honestly it it it helps, you know, pay the bills. It helps buy equipment. But it also helps me figure out what it is that you want. And the advertising models are broken. We have to do value for value. But now, that is going to have to seep into the developer space for Bitcoin, Lightning, e cash and the rest of the freedom tech that we have. Because they're all being targeted by the federal governments of nations around the world, not just the United States. They're gonna have to go to that model too. They cannot have offices. They cannot have phone numbers. They cannot have emails. The only way this shit gets done moving forward, I guarantee you, is with stuff like Nostr and streaming satoshis and boosting satoshis and zaps.
That's the way that this is going to work. It's the only way. It's the only way I see going forward. Alright. That's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use. I want to bring to you today swarm stir.com that is swarmster.comswar m s t r because, you know, we put STRs at the end of damn near every word in the English language now much to the chagrin of many Bitcoiners out there. So in zap.stream, I've got the swarmster.com website up and essentially it's a client like, you know, any other Nostra client. And I'm gonna log in, it'll it allows me to log in with my browser extension that, you know, of of nip 07 type.
And oh, look there I am. Now I can write a note. Oh, you say, joy, Dave, doesn't everybody do that? Well, yes, but I have the ability to put Giphy GIFs directly into my notes. So I'm just gonna say, GIF I'm just gonna put in GIF test because I'm not all that inventive. And I'm gonna go down here to the gif or gift button and it now I can search Giphy. And we'll just put in good morning, even though it's late. And then I'm just gonna post it and we'll see what happens. And that's the thing one of the things that I've been looking for is the ability to post gifs.
That's what I want that's what I want to see. So now let's go over to because it's not showing me so it's not showing me the note with the gif so I'm gonna go over I'll just use go to to one of my standbys today. I think I'll choose primal. For some reason, coreacle.social, which is a huddlebod's, client, it boots once it gets going it's it's awesome fast. Oh, look. There it is. Once it gets going, it's awesome fast, but it takes a while for I and I think it's because I'm using such an old operating system that it's not playing well with my browsers. So primal is so there it is. I've got I've got my note up in the, zap.stream.
It's got gif test and then all of a sudden here's a gif and I did that through Swarmster. That is swarmster.com. There are other things to it, but now at least we have one client that has, you know, gifts that you can put directly into your notes without having to go to a third party and or a different website and go, you know, that's the way that I've been doing it. Really sucked. Been looking forward to this. Thank god. Now back into the news, and this is all pretty much gonna tie together. Jack Dorsey, been quite a busy busy boy over the last few days.
So first off, let's let's go with this one from BTC times. Jack Dorsey commits $21,000,000 to Bitcoin development efforts, and this happened on May 4th. Jack Dorsey, cofounder of Twitter, donated $21,000,000 to Open Sats, a nonprofit organization, through his start small initiative. This donation is part of his broader support for Bitcoin and decentralized social media. The allocation of the $21,000,000 donation includes $15,000,000 for the general fund $5,000,000 for the Noster fund $1,000,000 for operational expenses.
So $15,000,000 or rather the 15,000,000 for the general fund. The general fund basically is just general Bitcoin lightning, stuff like that. And, of course, they've got the Noster fund, which is just got $5,000,000 from Jack. So that's going to just Noster. And then $1,000,000 is to keep the lights on at, OpenSats. Sats. You know, pay Gigi a little bit, pay Gigi's underlings a little bit, you know, whatever. You know, if they have to, you know, sponsor somebody, you know, doing something, I don't know, maybe travel fees. It's doing something, I don't know, maybe travel fees, things like that. Just, you know, operational expenses. So $21,000,000 in total. Anyway, these funds are intended to support ongoing and new projects within the Bitcoin ecosystem and related technologies.
Open Sats has used these funds to further initiatives aimed at fostering open source software environments that support user rights and freedoms. The organization also emphasizes the need for infrastructure that prevents the rise of digital authoritarianism. And additionally, OpenSats has added new members to its committee and board to oversee and assess future projects. These strategic steps are part of OpenSAT's ongoing efforts to support a variety of roles in the open source community, including software developers, designers, and educators. Dorsey's donation also earmugs earmarks funds for a legal defense of Bitcoin developers, which aligns with his ongoing support for the Bitcoin community.
Overall, the substantial donation by Dorsey is expected to influence the development of Bitcoin and its establishment as a technological standard aligning with his vision of a more decentralized Internet. Now this is definitely not going to help feed the feud of all the people that are, you know, kind of coming out against donations. There's a good reason that they're coming out against donations. If and and lately, I think it's Semisol has been saying this cannot be the model going forward. It's either carnage or semisol. I I get their their icons confused. But he's right.
Whichever one of whichever he it was, they're right. They're absolutely right cannot depend on donations go moving forward as Like you know as because some of these things are not going to provide value. They're they're they're not they're just going to be abandoned. There's a lot of projects, but they all deserve a start. They all deserve a chance, right? And that's where this comes in. But after those donation rounds are over, you know, or maybe they never end. I don't know, but it would be delightful if like, coracle. Social had a revenue model that paid hodelbod living wage from the people that are using it because they find value in it. It's a value for value thing, again, like I said.
But either Semisol or Carnage, whoever started kinda beating the drum about the donation thing, they're not wrong. So cut them some slack, listen to what they have to say, and don't assume that they're being mean and nasty and that they're in a really bad mood. They're not. They're just stating facts. Right? And for, you know, to his credit, Matt O'Dell was just stating facts when he's talking about Mike Saylor doesn't want anybody to support open source development. I don't know why. I think it's all bullshit that he's doing that, But nobody's I don't really think anybody's actually angry at each other in this space according to about donations and whether or not to support developers.
I think they're just saying, this is the way I see this particular situation. And a lot of people get their fur rubbed the wrong way when they see somebody state the truth because truth is like poetry and nobody fucking likes poetry. That's the way that shit goes. But Jack's not done. No, no, no, no. He's not done. Block is going to invest 10% of Bitcoin profits into BTC each month for the rest of 2024. Alright. So this is no bullshit. Bitcoin Block announced its quarter 1 2024 financial results and unveiled a strategic plan to invest 10% of its gross profit from Bitcoin products into Bitcoin purchases on a monthly basis until the end of the year. Well, this should be permanent. I don't know what they're doing, but whatever.
Quote, we delivered strong results across the company during the Q1. Gross profit was 2,090,000,000 which was up 22% year over year consistent with the Q4. Adjusted EBITDA or EBITDA was $705,000,000 nearly doubling year over year and adjusted operating income was $364,000,000 which was 7x year over year said Amrita Ajuha, the company's COO and CFO. Cash App's, Cash App generated $80,000,000 of Bitcoin gross profit in the Q1 of 2024, up 59% year over year. The total sale amount of Bitcoin sold to customers, which we recognize as Bitcoin revenue, was $2,730,000,000 That was up 26% year over year.
The company added that the growth in these bitcoin numbers was driven by a pricing change made in the prior quarter, bitcoin inventory price appreciation, and an increase in the average market price of bitcoin. Block also announced a strategic investment in bitcoin. In April, the company implemented a dollar cost averaging or average purchase program that will run through 2024. Under the program, Block will be investing 10% of its gross profit from Bitcoin products into Bitcoin purchases. Quote, Block Incorporated views Bitcoin as an instrument of global economic empowerment.
It is a way for individuals around the world to participate in a global monetary system and secure their own financial future. The company currently holds 8,027 BTC on its balance sheet per bitcointreasuries.net. Recently, Block also launched Square Bitcoin conversion products, which allows merchants to automatically convert a portion of their sales into Bitcoin holdings. And a couple of weeks ago, Block also unveiled plans to offer both a standalone 3 nanometer Bitcoin mining chip and a comprehensive mining system developed by the company. So even in the midst of this current red candle that we've got that has brought Bitcoin price to $62,066 We have this news.
Block, in general, their profits are up across the board looks pretty much like 25% year over year. That's amazing. That's that's huge. I mean shit Boeing wouldn't be able to do that Boeing might be seeing negative 25% gains here in the next quarter or on a year over year basis. So honestly good well done, sir. Holy shit, but again Jack's not done Jack Dorsey's block, we're back to block is going to raise $1,500,000,000 in senior note offerings. Ah, just like Michael Saylor Ana Paula Pierri from Cointelegraph dot com Fintech firm Block, formerly Square, announced plans on May 6th to issue $1,500,000,000 in senior notes through a private placement to qualified institutional investors.
The company said in a statement that the terms of the notes, including interest rates and maturity dates, are subject to negotiation with the initial purchasers. Investors permitted to join the round include pension funds, banks, mutual funds, and of course, high net worth individuals. Not you, not the pleb. We suck, remember? So we can't do it because, you know, laws and shit, but whatever. Block's shares rose more than 4% following the announcement trading at $72.40 at the time of writing. A private placement is a method of raising capital through the sale of securities, such as stocks or notes, to a limited number of investors rather than through a public offering. According to Block, funds raised through the sale may be used for the repayment of existing debt, potential acquisitions and strategic transactions, capital expenditures, investments, and working capital.
According to Fitch Ratings, Block is well positioned to capitalize on secular growth areas in payments and consumer financial services. Regarding the Fintech debt structure, Fitch noted that Block has relied on the convertible debt market for most of its external capital needs since its initial public offering. As of March 2024, the company had approximately $2,150,000,000 in outstanding convertible notes, a revolving credit facility of $775,000,000 available until June of 2028, and $2,000,000,000 in senior unsecured notes due in 2026 and then again in 2023.
Fitch wrote, quote, the announced debt raise would bring additional debt onto its balance sheet that is expected to ultimately help refinance 2025 through 2026 maturities, while also providing further cash support to its already strong balance sheet, end quote. Block was one of the first public companies to add bitcoin to its balance sheet, recently noted the firm's cofounder Jack Dorsey in a letter to shareholders. Dorsey also revealed that the company plans to allocate 10% of its gross profit from bitcoin products every month to bitcoin purchases. Yes, we know. We just got finished with that.
The Fintech firm's earnings beat market expectations in the Q1 of 2024. Total gross profit for the Q1 reached 2,090,000,000 which was again up 22% from the year ago quarter. The company posted a total revenue of almost $6,000,000,000 with per share earnings of 85¢, well beyond analyst predictions. So block seems to be doing well, except I like us, you know, all of us we don't like this debt structuring stuff because this is what brought us here in the first place. Wouldn't it be ironic if it just so happened that the very way in is the very way out?
You know, it's sort of like a roller coaster The same place that you get on the ride is the same place that they stop and let you off of the ride Makes sense. Is it gonna work that way? I don't know every time I see somebody saying hey, we're gonna take on a mountain of debt Because you know, our revenues are top notch bitches. I don't know it just That's why I'm not getting paid the big bucks. I know it's done I know it's done all the time, but we see when the governments do it, we see the havoc that it that it wreaks. When private companies do it, if they do it poorly, it screws their shareholders.
Will Michael Saylor and Jack Dorsey will they end up on top with all the debt all the senior seniorage notes that they've put out there? Will it come back to bite them in the ass shit, brother? I don't know. We will have to wait and see but Spiral yet another one of Jack Dorsey's many minions out there walking around doing stuff, Spiral has renewed grants to Bitcoin Xavier and Matt Morehouse. Spiral, an independent Bitcoin focused entity within the block ecosystem of companies, renewed grants to Bitcoin and Lightning developers, Bitcoin Xavier and Matt Morehouse.
Grant renewal in the document where usually lays out what points I need to hit when writing our grant related tweets for Bitcoin Xavier Connor just wrote 3rd renewal So congratulations Bitcoin Xavier on your 3rd renewal. I wish I knew what it was for, announced spiral on x. Bitcoin Xavier works on LDK and BDK projects. Yesterday's off-site picnic went very wrong because of ornery goats for our riding team. So this is the best tweet you're gonna get. This is Matt Morehouse's second renewal, one he'll use to improve lightning security and stability. Disclosures are at, morehouse. Github.io, announced spiral in a separate post.
Matt Morehouse works on lightning network security, including test coverage of CLN, eclair, LDK, LND, auditing Bolt vulnerabilities, reporting bugs and ensuring fixes, so congratulations to both mister Matt Morehouse and mister Bitcoin Xavier for getting some more money out of the block ecosystem of companies Anybody that is I know we've got enough Bitcoiners out there There's got to be somebody out there who's got enough money to possibly relax on his or her lawyer laurels just for a little bit. Not not for the rest of their life, just for a little bit. And maybe donate some of their expert time to mentoring some of us plebs on how to make companies with credible revenue models.
It seems like it would be you know, just not easy, but You don't really need anybody to help you with that. That's what it sort of kind of seems like on the surface But if there's anybody out there that's listening that knows how to do this they this is what they do They know more about revenue models than anybody else because they worked on Wall Street for 25 years now they're dyed in the wool or dyed in the orange wool Bitcoiner and they want to help well then help us. Put together educational materials. Host Noster Ness to for us to ask you questions. How how can we actually leverage the best parts of the legacy financial system?
The people that didn't want to design systems to just screw everybody else and take all their money. What about the people that were actually fairly credible, you know, approaching, you know, moral and ethical? Because those people do exist. They do, I swear to God they do exist. There's not many of them left. I think they've been eaten up, but the ones that have survived and are still able to sleep with themselves at night because they did not steal granny's pension check, would you please please please offer master classes? I will sign my ass straight up because I wanna know what you know and I will zap your ass some sats for it. Alright, that's the morning report, which is now clearly in the afternoon.
Dad says jokes. The person who invented the Ferris wheel never met the person who invented the merry-go-round because they traveled in different circles. Get it? Alright. There you go. There's the show for the day. Final ask, donate to the show, increase your your your boost for the Bitcoin and podcast. Help me make this show premium product. You know, show me some love. Give me some of those good feelings because when you're when you're banging your head against the wall, the blood gets in your eyes and you kind of can't see straight. But when somebody's saying what you do is valuable and and here I'm going to show you that it's valuable by zapping the shit out of you or giving you boostergrams or streaming, you know, high amounts of of satoshis.
All of a sudden, that blood has a tendency to get out of your eyes and you can actually sit down and work because you you make it headway, you know, you're making headway. That's what I crave every single time I get big boosts or like people streaming me like over 50 satoshis per minute. It's a huge huge that boost to the ego, a boost to my heart and that always helps. If not, then 5 star reviews on Apple. Takes longer to do than a boost. It really does. Because you got to go over to Apple podcasts, you got to find the Bitcoin and podcast And then you gotta figure out what to actually write and then hit the 5 star thing. But if that's what you got, man, I I that is way appreciated because that sets the Bitcoin and podcast rolling in the algorithms for all of the podcast apps, whether they're legacy podcast apps or the podcasting 2.0 apps, which I highly recommend you go get one. You can use fountain. That's my daily driver, and I love it. But there's Podverse, there's Podfriend, there's all there's like there's like 20 of them.
And they're amazing. Sphinx.chat has a pod a podcasting 2.0, podcast app enabled directly in the wallet and it's a Bitcoin wallet. It was a Bitcoin wallet first and they dropped a podcast app in there so that they could get people to do boostagrams and stream satoshis and a whole bunch of other stuff, but you get like stuff like chapters you get transcripts you get all kinds of neat stuff. So consider consider helping me make this show a more than premium product so I can compete with the big boys, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin, and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. Uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 12 o'clock on the dot PM Pacific Daylight Time. It is the 6th day of May 2024.
This is episode 893 of Bitcoin. And the circle p vendor of choice today is XiXi 21 m. His in pub for Nostra will be in the show notes. I don't think he's actually on Twitter anymore. I certainly do not have a Twitter handle for him. But what does he sell? He sells confre routes. And he will ship them to you. Not only will he ship them to you, he will take your Bitcoin and trade for his comfrey roots. And you want comfrey in your yard. I have done an entire half show about that. It is episode 726 of Bitcoin and again that is 726, episode 726.
It's all about comfrey. You listen to that and you will have a deep deep deep understanding of why you want this plant in your garden. It's a perennial. Once you plant it, you'll never get rid of it. And because these plants are sterile, they only grow where they're planted. They do not spread. If you want them to spread, go listen to episode 726. And, yes, you want them to spread. I'm just saying medicine, let's see. What else does it do? It's a good medicine for scrapes, bruises, light cuts. You don't want to do deep cuts because it heals so well that it will actually heal the cut, from the top down wherever it's contacted. And, yeah, you don't want that. You don't want you you don't want to use it on deep cuts. But bruises, sprangs, scrapes, abrasions, poison ivy, poison oak, that kind you know, rashes and stuff works really, really well for that.
Also, it is one of the plants that produces the most biomass. In fact, it is arguable. Yet there there's an argument to be made that it is the plant the best plant on the face of the earth to give the most biomass per acre, per year, every year, year over year, and it just keeps getting better. Now, you can get all of this and pay for pay for it with bitcoin from she she 21m atprotonmail.com. If you want to email him that is s h I s h I 21m@protonmail dotcom or get a hold of him on Nostr. Again, his inpub will be in the show notes and you can just find any Nostr client, plug in the NPUB and you'll find Chi Chi. Tell him I sent you that he's part of the circle. Or he knows he's part of the circle p, but tell him that you heard it in the circle p because he will give me a cut of any proceeds that he gets and you want to get this plant. Again, this plant is permanent. You buy it once dudes, So it's totally totally worth it. Alright. Let's see. Where am I at here? I'm gonna take this and I'm gonna go over here. And we're gonna start with the news.
The bad news. Because there's always bad news. It's Monday. Did you think you were gonna get off lightly? No, I don't think so. Buddy boy, Robinhood Crypto just got a Wells notice from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. So if you wanted to know why we started out the day in the morning, depending on where you are in the world with some, red candles, this is probably why. Now they got the notice on March on May 4th be with you, but they actually the news just broke about it this morning. Here's what we got so far. This is out of Reuters retail trading platform Robinhood Markets said on Monday that it has indeed received an enforcement action from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on May 4th over crypto tokens traded on its platform. Now, this is specifically about crypto.
I don't think this Wells notice has much to do with the debacle that was going down with GameStop and AMC, you know, when they took the when they took the buy button away from everybody and all you could do was sell it because all the people that were shorting those companies were losing their ever loving minds. Where all of that market manipulation should have caused a Wells notice. No. No. No. No. No. This is about crypto. The company said that it received a so called Wells notice, which the SEC issues when it's planning to bring law enforcement actions against people. Such notices do not necessarily mean the company has engaged in wrongdoing, however. Quote, we firmly believe that the assets listed on our platform are not securities.
And we look forward to engaging with the SEC to make clear just how weak any case against Robinhood crypto would be, Dan Gallagher, chief legal compliance and corporate affairs officer at Robinhood said the SEC has adopted a tough stance toward the digital currency industry, yeah, arguing most cryptocurrency tokens are securities and subject to its registration rules, while crypto firms have accused it of overreach. Now the regulator declined to comment on the enforcement action notice. Coinbase, the world's largest publicly traded cryptocurrency exchanges, also previously argued the crypto assets, unlike stock and bonds, do not meet the definition of securities.
Bullshit. A position held by the vast majority of the crypto industry. Yeah. That's because the vast majority of the crypto industry is engaged in selling people unregistered securities. Let's just be clear about that. Now the SEC is engaged in a legal fight against Coinbase and last year it said that the crypto exchange facilitated trading of at least 13 crypto tokens that should have been registered with the SEC as securities. Robinhood enables customers to deposit and withdraw cryptocurrencies to and from its custodial platform and also routes customer orders to liquidity providers based on the lowest price.
It has been attempting for nearly 2 years to register with the SEC. Last year, it removed digital tokens, Solana, Cardano and Polygon from its platform. So in trying to comply comply with the SEC, the Robinhood gets paid with a Wells notice. We're going to take action against you. It's a Wells notice. So there's 2 things at work here. 1, this I do not like I said before, I do not believe this has anything to do with GameStop in the short selling that we saw while the pandemic was in full force. 2nd, the issue here is that cryptocurrencies, the vast majority of them are indeed unregistered securities.
They all passed the Howie test, except for Bitcoin. And it's possible, possible, maybe a couple of others don't. I'm not even gonna mention their names. But 99.99 percent of all this garbage are unregistered securities. So why is the SEC just now engaging in all this? Well, the United States federal government is firmly in the then they fight you phase. So here's what I ask is that all Bitcoin developers, lightning developers, eCash developers do the following: Stop using your real name. 2, stop trying to build companies around it to make money. I know that that is ridiculous.
People have to feed themselves, they have to pay the bills. I get it. I get it. We're going to have to develop a completely new model. It's going to have to be some kind of value for value model. And it cannot be based on sending checks to an address or making a phone call to a phone over it. I don't know, like Cal, you know, CaliZcash or Cashew wallet. It can't be a you cannot give away your sniping position. Right? I that's what I look at at when I see developers in this space, what I see are snipers that are basically taking pop shots and doing a lot of damage to the beast. But when you give your position away an email address, a snail mail address, a phone number, an address that you can go knock on the door then you're going to get a Wells notice. You're going to be arrested by the FBI.
You're going to go to court. That's the way that the Beast is playing its game now because it's backed into a corner and this is where the claws come out in fast and furious ways. You don't want to have nothing to do with a cornered animal and this animal is 100 percent cornered. We have to keep our distance and start blowing its head off from far far far away and from deep deep deep within blinds. Do not be seen. Do not use your real name. Do not have an office. Do not if anybody works for you, figure out a way that it's not under a corporate structure because those corporate and company structures, LLCs, doing DBAs or doing business as all of that shit has always been designed to put a location on the sniper.
Don't use it. Get as far away from it as you can. Robin Hood, I don't know what's gonna happen to him but we've got other fish to fry. We've got, in fact, 1,000,000,000 fish to fry. Bitcoin network tops 1,000,000,000 in total transactions processed. Bitcoin Magazine, Vivec Sine. The Bitcoin network has reached a major milestone processing its 1,000,000,000 transaction yesterday, an achievement comes that achievement comes 15 years 4 months after Bitcoin's genesis block was mined, January 3rd 2009. At an average rate of a 178,475 transactions per day over its 5,603 day lifespan so far, Bitcoin has demonstrated the ability to handle significant volume securely without any centralized intermediaries whatsoever.
Many early critics argued nobody would use Bitcoin. But today, the network handles daily transaction volumes on par with major payment giants. This milestone also comes on the heels of Bitcoin's recent all time high above $73,000 in March. The excitement around the latest halving event and new protocols like, oh god, ordinals and ruins have driven surges in network activity. All told, April 23rd saw a single day transaction record of above 926,000 transactions and while volume has moderated from those highs, Bitcoin continues averaging 600,000 plus transactions in May of 2024 alone By reliably facilitating 1,000,000,000 transactions in just 15 years, Bitcoin has proven its resilience and capacity at scale. And with accelerating adoption, Bitcoin appears poised to reach the next 1000000000 transactions at an even faster pace.
So 1,000,000,000 transactions. Congratulations, everybody. Madames and monsieurs, you did well. Good job. Grayscale is finally finally figuring it out. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe they'll we'll maybe we'll find out something about grayscale's fees in this particular piece written by Ryan Ozawa out of decrypt. Grayscale Bitcoin ETF snaps its losing streak and actually pulls in $63,000,000 Amazing, isn't it? The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF finally drew in more new cash than it lost, snapping an 11 week streak with a positive gain of $63,000,000 according to Coin Glass. Congratulations.
GBTC has been, seen so many investors cashing out since, competing spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved in January. Its outflows alone often weighed down the entire nascent space. Quote, holy crap. GBTC had inflows today, tweeted Eric Balchunas on Twitter. Their 80 day ish streak is finally over. I had to run my eyes and double check the data, but it's true. He added, on a scale of 1-ten, how we're so back is this? Oh, for God's sakes. GBTC is still the largest Bitcoin spot ETF with over $18,700,000,000 in asset under management coupled with about 297,000 Bitcoin but constant outflows allowed newer competitors to close the gap, and the BlackRock ishares bitcoin trust, iBit, has $17,200,000,000 of assets under management on Tuesday. So there you go.
GBTC finally had a net positive day. I mean, what was it? What what did the piece say 80 days? 80 days of total loss. Just nothing but outflows 80 straight days starting January 11th was the I mean they it was just immediate sell on GBTC. Now finally, they finally reversed it. How will that hold? Well, I don't know. See, the Wells notice is still causing some red candles. So we'll have to see what GBTC does today, but at least they finally snapped the solid losing streak. Okay, all right. So, that's pretty much it for the majority of the major pieces of the news. I've got this show divided up into 2 two places. I've got some other news, but I wanna put this other news kinda collapse it all together on the back end. So we're not quite done yet. But before we go to the numbers, NostraV.
Your NostraVents on Google Drive. No, no, no, this isn't an advertisement. I want to show y'all this. Alright, so here is for the guys over in zap. Stream realjoad, says good evening. Good good evening, sir. I'm glad to to see you here. I saw this, and I cannot god. I can't I think it was Alex Gleeson brought this to my attention on Noster, and then, of course, a couple of other people did too. But I'm pretty sure it was Alex Gleeson of Activity Pub Pub fame that brought this to my attention. Yes, what's going on here is that your Google Drive, not my Google Drive, not anybody else's Google Drive, If you've got an inpub, Nos drive allows you to cannibalize or parasitize your Google Drive to act as a storage medium and a relay. It kinda, NAS drive kinda connects your Google Drive with a relay and your InPub so that whenever it is that you write a note that note is copied through the relay back to your Google Drive.
Not to my Google Drive, not to Alex Gleeson's Google Drive your Google Drive. And of course, why would you do this? It's Google Drive. I mean, my God, Google is is all kinds of evil. I don't think that this is what people think it is. Let me just kind of break it down for just just a sec. In the screen you see it's you can for those not looking it is nosdrive. App or nosdrive. Appnos drive. App. And if you've got a Google Drive, you can log in with your Google stuff and then pop in your NPUB into nosdrive. App and it will set it up for you. It like, if you've got Google Drive. Right? Okay. So that said, that's what people are looking at is my my shit over here, the way that I set up nos drive dot app. It just says that my my nos drive is connected. But up here in the upper right corner, it shows my, the emblem or the, oh god, the icon that I use for my Google account.
Because I do log into a bunch of a bunch of stuff in my Google account but I try not to log into anything that you know that means a whole lot to me and like I will test stuff with with my Google login, except Google Mail. I have to I have to log in to Google to get my Google Mail. In either event, what's going on is that now every time I send a note in whatever client that I'm using, I of course I make sure that I've got relay nosdrive.appforward/relay. That's the address for the relay. Nosdrive.appforward/relay. If I've got that in my client's relay list and I'm logged in to my Nostra client and I'm logged in to my my Google Drive well, actually, I don't have to be logged in to my Google Drive once it's all set up. It just does it. But if I'm logged into my Google Drive, every time I send a note, that note gets copied to my Google Drive. The entire event, All the metadata that's around it. Time it was sent, what the message was, all kinds of stuff.
And one of the first pieces of pushback that I got when I put this back out on Noster to, you know, kind of boost its, boost its visibility was why would I do that? Fair question, brother. So let's look at it from my point of view. Do I need this? No, not really. Is it good to have in a way? Kind of. Only because it backs up all my notes directly to my own Google Drive, which I have access to. And technically speaking nobody else does, but let's we'll we'll keep the the fact that that's kind of bullshit, I I don't trust Google at all. So now all my notes are are in my Google Drive. At least the ones that I've written since I made the attachment of my NPUB to my Google Drive. If something were to happen, I would have a copy of all my notes directly on my own Google Drive.
Okay, so that's sort of why you want it so that you can make sure that you safeguard it in case worst case scenario happens, right? I don't trust Google. But what I find the most fascinating part about this entire thing is this it's not as much that I have the ability to cache my notes that I send on Nostr directly to my Google Drive, which I have full control over. It's the fact that it was done in the first place that somebody figured out how to parasitize the legacy digital data storage system. This is where I'm going I think that it is necessary now to wrap the tendrils of Nostr and Bitcoin and e cash and Lightning Network and all the freedom tech that you can imagine and think of it as Digestive tendrils that we wrap around the dead and the dying to ingest them And there's a saying for there's a saying that kind of, better illustrates this. Let me see if I can bring this, bring this up. Hold out for a second.
And this is gonna be a better way to say it. We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own Resistance is futile Now that's what this is. This is us cannibalizing and everything legacy and forcing it forcing it. We're adding their technological distinctiveness to our own. We are trapping them. We are cannibalizing them. We are carving little bits and pieces off of their bodies and we are doing with that material what ever we wish to Early stages.
Can it backfire? Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't trust Google with with my data at all. But the fact that we were able to turn a Google Drive into a storage device for something that I do think matters Noster that is a that is a warning shot across the bow of legacy digital bullshit. Alright? So that's why it's important. Okay. Let's run the numbers. CNBC Futures and Commodities West Texas Intermediate is up after taking a hammering over the weekend and the end of last week. It is up 3 quarters of a point to $78.70 Brent Norcia is likewise up 2 thirds of a point to $83.52.
Natural gas is up 2.8 percent to $2.20 a 1,000 cubic feet. Wow. It hasn't been this high in quite a while. Gasoline is up 1.3 percent to $2.58 a gallon. All the shiny metal rocks are doing well. Gold is doing very well as is silver. Gold is up 1.15%. Silver is up 3.78 percent to $27.7.70. Wow. Platinum is up slightly. Copper is up 1.1. Palladium is up 3.8%. Let's get into the dashboard already here. I don't even give a shit about what legacy markets are doing. $63,000 and what no. $63,050 for a price of 1 Bitcoin. That is $1,240,000,000,000 of market cap. You can purchase 27.3 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your 1 Bitcoin of which there are 19,000,000 694,661 and, 7.74 BTC in circulation at the time. A third of a BTC is being taken for average fees on a per block basis.
I think that's yeah, that should do it for that. Let's get into the mempool and find out what idiocy is going on here. Wow, we're back up. 242 blocks are carrying close to 200,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 34 satoshis per vbyte. Low priority, 28 satoshis per vbyte. Gonna get you in. And anything under 5.5 is gonna be purged from mempools around the world. 589.2 exahashes per second is what I'm getting for the average hash rate out of mempool. Spacemining. And from Kings Cross, episode 892 of Bitcoin and, nat natural gas or nat gas immersion boosted me a big row of sticks, 11,111 sats, full row of sticks, full palindrome. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you is what I say for what he said. Letter 6173 boosted 5,000 said nothing. DeBravco was 1690 said, quote, any tool to be used against organized criminals will eventually be used against the populace. Yes. It will. And he also he goes on to say also the United States is pulling the same truck they used on the indigenous people.
Starve them out. Yeah, I've thought about that a lot lately man. PIES with 420 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. God's death with 3:30 7 says thank you sir, no thank you. And our Amim Amimiram says with a 100 says always appreciate your content. Thanks for what you do. I appreciate that. The bird with a 100 says, what's the donation page to help them? He's talking about the King Ranch. There is no donation page as of yet. I will talk to their lawyer about it at one point or another, but don't don't, you know, hold your breath. Cross your fingers, but don't hold your breath.
Way to legacy. They are in the middle of the shit right now. Well, I will ask her if there's something that we can do on our end, but she is not. I guarantee she does not have the time to mitigate learning a new technology. So just again, don't hold your breath, but cross your fingers. Pies with a 100 says you can absolutely read my boost from the last show. Okay. Let's go do that because it's a bit personal, but if he said it's okay, I want to make sure that I am doing my bit for King and Country here. Good Lord. Come on, man. It may not even do it for me. Let's go over here and from Inditis All.
I've got I've got where is he? Where is he? He's down. Okay. So back on indict us all, which was was episode 891 of Bitcoin and, Pai's boosted 420 and says, I've done some serious state time. While I have corrected my life since and it was many years ago and never went to see the inside of a jail cell ever again, If you told me that I could do 3 years for $1,300,000,000 I would do it standing on my head shackled 23 hours a day in solitary confinement with one stipulation. It had to be paid in BTC at the price of the day I start my sentence. So that's why I didn't want to just blurt it out there because I, you know, trying to be proper and respectful to the people that are giving me their time, talent and treasure, which I asked for again today.
The only way this works going forward, not just for the podcasters, but I think I I think for all of us in this space, we're gonna have to switch to value for value. So if you think that what I do has value, then value it the way that you think it should be valued. Just use satoshis. Send me boostograms. Or, you know, if you're sending like just once, you know, 10 sats, a minute on streaming through a podcasting 2.0 application, then make it 20 or 50 or something like that. Whatever it is that you think that it has value. If it has value, it's your determination as to what that value is, not mine. I'm not gonna suggest a minimum, you know, a minimum donation.
That's just stupid. It's whatever you think. So all what I have to do is make a premium product and I honestly think that I'm not there yet. I really do. I believe that I'm not at premium product yet and I can tell by the donations because they're below. They just are. I The only thing that I can do about that is to figure out why I'm not bringing you the value that I think I should be bringing you because I'm not seeing it coming in on the other side. That's not really a bitch fest. That is that's one of the ways that value for value works. By basically having, you know, a trickle of satoshis come out the other end of the pipe, I have to wonder, what am I not doing?
What am I not doing for y'all that would say this is high value? This is a 100,000 sat boost. This is a 150,000 sat boost. When I get there, I know I'm at premium product. So it works in the value for value model works in so many ways. It it honestly it it it helps, you know, pay the bills. It helps buy equipment. But it also helps me figure out what it is that you want. And the advertising models are broken. We have to do value for value. But now, that is going to have to seep into the developer space for Bitcoin, Lightning, e cash and the rest of the freedom tech that we have. Because they're all being targeted by the federal governments of nations around the world, not just the United States. They're gonna have to go to that model too. They cannot have offices. They cannot have phone numbers. They cannot have emails. The only way this shit gets done moving forward, I guarantee you, is with stuff like Nostr and streaming satoshis and boosting satoshis and zaps.
That's the way that this is going to work. It's the only way. It's the only way I see going forward. Alright. That's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use. I want to bring to you today swarm stir.com that is swarmster.comswar m s t r because, you know, we put STRs at the end of damn near every word in the English language now much to the chagrin of many Bitcoiners out there. So in zap.stream, I've got the swarmster.com website up and essentially it's a client like, you know, any other Nostra client. And I'm gonna log in, it'll it allows me to log in with my browser extension that, you know, of of nip 07 type.
And oh, look there I am. Now I can write a note. Oh, you say, joy, Dave, doesn't everybody do that? Well, yes, but I have the ability to put Giphy GIFs directly into my notes. So I'm just gonna say, GIF I'm just gonna put in GIF test because I'm not all that inventive. And I'm gonna go down here to the gif or gift button and it now I can search Giphy. And we'll just put in good morning, even though it's late. And then I'm just gonna post it and we'll see what happens. And that's the thing one of the things that I've been looking for is the ability to post gifs.
That's what I want that's what I want to see. So now let's go over to because it's not showing me so it's not showing me the note with the gif so I'm gonna go over I'll just use go to to one of my standbys today. I think I'll choose primal. For some reason, coreacle.social, which is a huddlebod's, client, it boots once it gets going it's it's awesome fast. Oh, look. There it is. Once it gets going, it's awesome fast, but it takes a while for I and I think it's because I'm using such an old operating system that it's not playing well with my browsers. So primal is so there it is. I've got I've got my note up in the, zap.stream.
It's got gif test and then all of a sudden here's a gif and I did that through Swarmster. That is swarmster.com. There are other things to it, but now at least we have one client that has, you know, gifts that you can put directly into your notes without having to go to a third party and or a different website and go, you know, that's the way that I've been doing it. Really sucked. Been looking forward to this. Thank god. Now back into the news, and this is all pretty much gonna tie together. Jack Dorsey, been quite a busy busy boy over the last few days.
So first off, let's let's go with this one from BTC times. Jack Dorsey commits $21,000,000 to Bitcoin development efforts, and this happened on May 4th. Jack Dorsey, cofounder of Twitter, donated $21,000,000 to Open Sats, a nonprofit organization, through his start small initiative. This donation is part of his broader support for Bitcoin and decentralized social media. The allocation of the $21,000,000 donation includes $15,000,000 for the general fund $5,000,000 for the Noster fund $1,000,000 for operational expenses.
So $15,000,000 or rather the 15,000,000 for the general fund. The general fund basically is just general Bitcoin lightning, stuff like that. And, of course, they've got the Noster fund, which is just got $5,000,000 from Jack. So that's going to just Noster. And then $1,000,000 is to keep the lights on at, OpenSats. Sats. You know, pay Gigi a little bit, pay Gigi's underlings a little bit, you know, whatever. You know, if they have to, you know, sponsor somebody, you know, doing something, I don't know, maybe travel fees. It's doing something, I don't know, maybe travel fees, things like that. Just, you know, operational expenses. So $21,000,000 in total. Anyway, these funds are intended to support ongoing and new projects within the Bitcoin ecosystem and related technologies.
Open Sats has used these funds to further initiatives aimed at fostering open source software environments that support user rights and freedoms. The organization also emphasizes the need for infrastructure that prevents the rise of digital authoritarianism. And additionally, OpenSats has added new members to its committee and board to oversee and assess future projects. These strategic steps are part of OpenSAT's ongoing efforts to support a variety of roles in the open source community, including software developers, designers, and educators. Dorsey's donation also earmugs earmarks funds for a legal defense of Bitcoin developers, which aligns with his ongoing support for the Bitcoin community.
Overall, the substantial donation by Dorsey is expected to influence the development of Bitcoin and its establishment as a technological standard aligning with his vision of a more decentralized Internet. Now this is definitely not going to help feed the feud of all the people that are, you know, kind of coming out against donations. There's a good reason that they're coming out against donations. If and and lately, I think it's Semisol has been saying this cannot be the model going forward. It's either carnage or semisol. I I get their their icons confused. But he's right.
Whichever one of whichever he it was, they're right. They're absolutely right cannot depend on donations go moving forward as Like you know as because some of these things are not going to provide value. They're they're they're not they're just going to be abandoned. There's a lot of projects, but they all deserve a start. They all deserve a chance, right? And that's where this comes in. But after those donation rounds are over, you know, or maybe they never end. I don't know, but it would be delightful if like, coracle. Social had a revenue model that paid hodelbod living wage from the people that are using it because they find value in it. It's a value for value thing, again, like I said.
But either Semisol or Carnage, whoever started kinda beating the drum about the donation thing, they're not wrong. So cut them some slack, listen to what they have to say, and don't assume that they're being mean and nasty and that they're in a really bad mood. They're not. They're just stating facts. Right? And for, you know, to his credit, Matt O'Dell was just stating facts when he's talking about Mike Saylor doesn't want anybody to support open source development. I don't know why. I think it's all bullshit that he's doing that, But nobody's I don't really think anybody's actually angry at each other in this space according to about donations and whether or not to support developers.
I think they're just saying, this is the way I see this particular situation. And a lot of people get their fur rubbed the wrong way when they see somebody state the truth because truth is like poetry and nobody fucking likes poetry. That's the way that shit goes. But Jack's not done. No, no, no, no. He's not done. Block is going to invest 10% of Bitcoin profits into BTC each month for the rest of 2024. Alright. So this is no bullshit. Bitcoin Block announced its quarter 1 2024 financial results and unveiled a strategic plan to invest 10% of its gross profit from Bitcoin products into Bitcoin purchases on a monthly basis until the end of the year. Well, this should be permanent. I don't know what they're doing, but whatever.
Quote, we delivered strong results across the company during the Q1. Gross profit was 2,090,000,000 which was up 22% year over year consistent with the Q4. Adjusted EBITDA or EBITDA was $705,000,000 nearly doubling year over year and adjusted operating income was $364,000,000 which was 7x year over year said Amrita Ajuha, the company's COO and CFO. Cash App's, Cash App generated $80,000,000 of Bitcoin gross profit in the Q1 of 2024, up 59% year over year. The total sale amount of Bitcoin sold to customers, which we recognize as Bitcoin revenue, was $2,730,000,000 That was up 26% year over year.
The company added that the growth in these bitcoin numbers was driven by a pricing change made in the prior quarter, bitcoin inventory price appreciation, and an increase in the average market price of bitcoin. Block also announced a strategic investment in bitcoin. In April, the company implemented a dollar cost averaging or average purchase program that will run through 2024. Under the program, Block will be investing 10% of its gross profit from Bitcoin products into Bitcoin purchases. Quote, Block Incorporated views Bitcoin as an instrument of global economic empowerment.
It is a way for individuals around the world to participate in a global monetary system and secure their own financial future. The company currently holds 8,027 BTC on its balance sheet per bitcointreasuries.net. Recently, Block also launched Square Bitcoin conversion products, which allows merchants to automatically convert a portion of their sales into Bitcoin holdings. And a couple of weeks ago, Block also unveiled plans to offer both a standalone 3 nanometer Bitcoin mining chip and a comprehensive mining system developed by the company. So even in the midst of this current red candle that we've got that has brought Bitcoin price to $62,066 We have this news.
Block, in general, their profits are up across the board looks pretty much like 25% year over year. That's amazing. That's that's huge. I mean shit Boeing wouldn't be able to do that Boeing might be seeing negative 25% gains here in the next quarter or on a year over year basis. So honestly good well done, sir. Holy shit, but again Jack's not done Jack Dorsey's block, we're back to block is going to raise $1,500,000,000 in senior note offerings. Ah, just like Michael Saylor Ana Paula Pierri from Cointelegraph dot com Fintech firm Block, formerly Square, announced plans on May 6th to issue $1,500,000,000 in senior notes through a private placement to qualified institutional investors.
The company said in a statement that the terms of the notes, including interest rates and maturity dates, are subject to negotiation with the initial purchasers. Investors permitted to join the round include pension funds, banks, mutual funds, and of course, high net worth individuals. Not you, not the pleb. We suck, remember? So we can't do it because, you know, laws and shit, but whatever. Block's shares rose more than 4% following the announcement trading at $72.40 at the time of writing. A private placement is a method of raising capital through the sale of securities, such as stocks or notes, to a limited number of investors rather than through a public offering. According to Block, funds raised through the sale may be used for the repayment of existing debt, potential acquisitions and strategic transactions, capital expenditures, investments, and working capital.
According to Fitch Ratings, Block is well positioned to capitalize on secular growth areas in payments and consumer financial services. Regarding the Fintech debt structure, Fitch noted that Block has relied on the convertible debt market for most of its external capital needs since its initial public offering. As of March 2024, the company had approximately $2,150,000,000 in outstanding convertible notes, a revolving credit facility of $775,000,000 available until June of 2028, and $2,000,000,000 in senior unsecured notes due in 2026 and then again in 2023.
Fitch wrote, quote, the announced debt raise would bring additional debt onto its balance sheet that is expected to ultimately help refinance 2025 through 2026 maturities, while also providing further cash support to its already strong balance sheet, end quote. Block was one of the first public companies to add bitcoin to its balance sheet, recently noted the firm's cofounder Jack Dorsey in a letter to shareholders. Dorsey also revealed that the company plans to allocate 10% of its gross profit from bitcoin products every month to bitcoin purchases. Yes, we know. We just got finished with that.
The Fintech firm's earnings beat market expectations in the Q1 of 2024. Total gross profit for the Q1 reached 2,090,000,000 which was again up 22% from the year ago quarter. The company posted a total revenue of almost $6,000,000,000 with per share earnings of 85¢, well beyond analyst predictions. So block seems to be doing well, except I like us, you know, all of us we don't like this debt structuring stuff because this is what brought us here in the first place. Wouldn't it be ironic if it just so happened that the very way in is the very way out?
You know, it's sort of like a roller coaster The same place that you get on the ride is the same place that they stop and let you off of the ride Makes sense. Is it gonna work that way? I don't know every time I see somebody saying hey, we're gonna take on a mountain of debt Because you know, our revenues are top notch bitches. I don't know it just That's why I'm not getting paid the big bucks. I know it's done I know it's done all the time, but we see when the governments do it, we see the havoc that it that it wreaks. When private companies do it, if they do it poorly, it screws their shareholders.
Will Michael Saylor and Jack Dorsey will they end up on top with all the debt all the senior seniorage notes that they've put out there? Will it come back to bite them in the ass shit, brother? I don't know. We will have to wait and see but Spiral yet another one of Jack Dorsey's many minions out there walking around doing stuff, Spiral has renewed grants to Bitcoin Xavier and Matt Morehouse. Spiral, an independent Bitcoin focused entity within the block ecosystem of companies, renewed grants to Bitcoin and Lightning developers, Bitcoin Xavier and Matt Morehouse.
Grant renewal in the document where usually lays out what points I need to hit when writing our grant related tweets for Bitcoin Xavier Connor just wrote 3rd renewal So congratulations Bitcoin Xavier on your 3rd renewal. I wish I knew what it was for, announced spiral on x. Bitcoin Xavier works on LDK and BDK projects. Yesterday's off-site picnic went very wrong because of ornery goats for our riding team. So this is the best tweet you're gonna get. This is Matt Morehouse's second renewal, one he'll use to improve lightning security and stability. Disclosures are at, morehouse. Github.io, announced spiral in a separate post.
Matt Morehouse works on lightning network security, including test coverage of CLN, eclair, LDK, LND, auditing Bolt vulnerabilities, reporting bugs and ensuring fixes, so congratulations to both mister Matt Morehouse and mister Bitcoin Xavier for getting some more money out of the block ecosystem of companies Anybody that is I know we've got enough Bitcoiners out there There's got to be somebody out there who's got enough money to possibly relax on his or her lawyer laurels just for a little bit. Not not for the rest of their life, just for a little bit. And maybe donate some of their expert time to mentoring some of us plebs on how to make companies with credible revenue models.
It seems like it would be you know, just not easy, but You don't really need anybody to help you with that. That's what it sort of kind of seems like on the surface But if there's anybody out there that's listening that knows how to do this they this is what they do They know more about revenue models than anybody else because they worked on Wall Street for 25 years now they're dyed in the wool or dyed in the orange wool Bitcoiner and they want to help well then help us. Put together educational materials. Host Noster Ness to for us to ask you questions. How how can we actually leverage the best parts of the legacy financial system?
The people that didn't want to design systems to just screw everybody else and take all their money. What about the people that were actually fairly credible, you know, approaching, you know, moral and ethical? Because those people do exist. They do, I swear to God they do exist. There's not many of them left. I think they've been eaten up, but the ones that have survived and are still able to sleep with themselves at night because they did not steal granny's pension check, would you please please please offer master classes? I will sign my ass straight up because I wanna know what you know and I will zap your ass some sats for it. Alright, that's the morning report, which is now clearly in the afternoon.
Dad says jokes. The person who invented the Ferris wheel never met the person who invented the merry-go-round because they traveled in different circles. Get it? Alright. There you go. There's the show for the day. Final ask, donate to the show, increase your your your boost for the Bitcoin and podcast. Help me make this show premium product. You know, show me some love. Give me some of those good feelings because when you're when you're banging your head against the wall, the blood gets in your eyes and you kind of can't see straight. But when somebody's saying what you do is valuable and and here I'm going to show you that it's valuable by zapping the shit out of you or giving you boostergrams or streaming, you know, high amounts of of satoshis.
All of a sudden, that blood has a tendency to get out of your eyes and you can actually sit down and work because you you make it headway, you know, you're making headway. That's what I crave every single time I get big boosts or like people streaming me like over 50 satoshis per minute. It's a huge huge that boost to the ego, a boost to my heart and that always helps. If not, then 5 star reviews on Apple. Takes longer to do than a boost. It really does. Because you got to go over to Apple podcasts, you got to find the Bitcoin and podcast And then you gotta figure out what to actually write and then hit the 5 star thing. But if that's what you got, man, I I that is way appreciated because that sets the Bitcoin and podcast rolling in the algorithms for all of the podcast apps, whether they're legacy podcast apps or the podcasting 2.0 apps, which I highly recommend you go get one. You can use fountain. That's my daily driver, and I love it. But there's Podverse, there's Podfriend, there's all there's like there's like 20 of them.
And they're amazing. Sphinx.chat has a pod a podcasting 2.0, podcast app enabled directly in the wallet and it's a Bitcoin wallet. It was a Bitcoin wallet first and they dropped a podcast app in there so that they could get people to do boostagrams and stream satoshis and a whole bunch of other stuff, but you get like stuff like chapters you get transcripts you get all kinds of neat stuff. So consider consider helping me make this show a more than premium product so I can compete with the big boys, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin, and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.
The Circle P: ShiShi's Comfrey
