Join me today for Episode 1011 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- The FED Effect on Bitcoin
- Lola L33tz' Take on the SBR
- Ohio Introduces Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill
- Arthur Hays Announces He's Going to HFSP
- BTC Surpasses Gold ETFs
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
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https://primal.net/e/note1vl2khgack5mnwecv8h55lmfz8xkl0agqrprj3q47qmtem6pa6fyqnus5gw
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https://decrypt.co/297211/ohio-representative-derek-merrin-introduces-bill-to-establish-state-bitcoin-reserve
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https://www.theblock.co/post/331334/us-imposes-sanctions-targeting-north-koreas-crypto-laundering-network
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[00:00:00]
David Bennett:
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 9:30 AM Pacific Standard Time. It is the 18th day of December 2024, and this is episode 1011 of Bitcoin, and we're taking a breather.
In more ways than one. We sure are. I'm gonna get to that. There's a I'm gonna start off with this Bitcoin taking a breather thing, but I'm going to be taking a breather, probably not gonna bring you a Bitcoin and tomorrow, and I'm certainly not going to be doing it on Friday because I will be on the road with the family on a 2 day drive to Southwest Colorado. Please please keep us in your prayers or cross your fingers for us or tell us to go break legs or whatever it is that you have to do because it's an awful long drive when you've got all of your treasure in the same car with you all at once. And I would appreciate some, you know, well wishing and whatnot like that. But tomorrow, I'm not going to be bringing you one because I'm going to be on the Once Bitten podcast with Daniel Prince. Y'all might know him as Princey.
I'm really excited about that. I have no idea what he wants to talk about. Generally speaking, in in situations where I'm invited to come on a podcast, I try not to anticipate a damn thing. I there's nothing I just figure, unless I'm given an agenda, I have nothing to prepare for. So I have no idea what Daniel has, has in store, but it should be fun. Daniel Prince has been in the space for a long, long time. Scott, one of the, top Bitcoin podcast in the space. Really excited about doing this with Daniel, and I appreciate him inviting me on. Now to the news, Bitcoin takes a breather after doji candle in a cautious pre federal reserve announcement derisking.
And this is sort of what I was thinking, was happening yesterday when we were when I was talking about it. But let's see what CoinDesk and Omkar Godbold has to say about it. Bitcoin has taken a breather, experiencing selling pressure after Tuesday's indecisive price action marked by a doji candle. This seems to be a classic case of traders derisking in anticipation of an expected hawkish Fed rate cut later today. The leading cryptocurrency by market value traded around 103,750 marking a 2% drop for the day according to trading view and coin desk data. Prices have surged to a record high of over $108,000 on Tuesday but failed to maintain those gains ending the UTC on the day flat.
That formed a doji, a candlestick pattern that signifies indecision and potential bullish exhaustion when seen at record highs. As expected, Bitcoin's decline has resulted in even larger losses for alternative cryptocurrencies, but some majors such as a whole bunch of shitcoins are experiencing something different, and I just don't freaking care. The Fed will announce the rate decision, the interest rate dot plot projections, and economic forecast at 1400 EST. Federal chair Jerome Powell's press conference will be held 1 half hour later.
The consensus is, and here's the important part, is that the Fed will cut rates by 25 basis points to the 4.25 to 4.5 percent range marking a total easing of 100 basis points since September. But the dot plot is expected to show fewer rate cuts for next year, and that's the thing. That's what's going on right there. Quote, the risk of slightly stronger near term growth with the threat of higher inflation, tariffs putting up prices of goods, and immigration controls potentially lifting wages and costs in the likes of agriculture, construction, and hospitality sectors means that we expect them to signal only 3 rate cuts in 2025.
Previously, they had suggested 4 rate cuts, Analyst at ING said in a note to clients, quote, we look for 25 bp of cuts per quarter in 2025 with a terminal rate of around 3.75% in the Q3, analyst added. These so called hawkish expectations are likely fueling the derisking in the crypto market that is looking for reasons to correct having seen prices for BTC soar from 70,000 to well over $100,000 in less than 2 months. It's important to note that fewer rate cuts do not necessarily mean tightening. Easing is still on the table, and this suggests that the path of least resistance for risk assets remains tilted towards the upside.
Alright. So my take on this is that we had some numbers come in that it kind of kind of, well suggested that inflation is not as under control as they say. Now when I say inflation is under control, please understand I that I know full well that inflation is not anywhere close to under control for the regular person on the street. I'm talking about the metrics that the federal government uses to lie to the American public to make sure that they think that everything is okay. So please understand that there is a working dichotomy at play here. They're full of shit, and they always have been. But this these are the numbers that they are releasing that tells the market what's going to happen, alright, or at least signals to the market, and then the market starts making moves, and then the market does what the market does. And we saw it wasn't it wasn't just Bitcoin yesterday. I mean, the Dow has had, like, 9 straight days. In fact, let me get that back up.
Let me get my trading view back up, and let's look at at a couple of things here. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Okay. The Dow Jones, I'm gonna put on the day chart and count the number of candles on the downside. So we went from around 45,000 on the Dow Jones Industrials to a bottom of 43,732. And it took 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 red candles in a row. We're talking about 9 straight days to the downside for the Dow Jones, and that hasn't been seen since somewhere around 1971, I think one analyst was saying. Today, we've got a green candle. We're we're back up off those lows. But I think that what was going on during those 9 days is that there were some signals in the back rooms that were saying, hey.
Yeah. They're gonna go ahead and cut rates this time, but instead of 4 rate cuts for 2025, there's they're only gonna do 3. And I would imagine that that is because they don't have inflation where they want it. But if they reverse course and keep rates neutral, and I I certainly don't expect them to actually raise any rates, but if they were to keep rates neutral on this particular Fed decision, it would liquefy the markets. Good lord. We've got a windstorm going on outside that is, rattling stuff around. So if you hear if you hear screaming and cats meowing in the background, it is possibly because we got a storm going on. Anyway, I'm just saying, that seems to be what's going on because like I said, it wasn't just Bitcoin that is having a down, you know, the down path, a couple of down days for the past thing. It was the entire Dow.
I'm looking at all kinds of stuff that was is flashing in the red, and it had was happening over the last couple of days. I think it's just end of year jitters. We're coming up on a Fed rate decision, and people get skittish. And that's just shit, bro. That's just the way it is. So I don't think that we should get as nervous as we have a tendency to get. Doesn't mean that, you know, bad shit won't happen. I'm just saying we've seen it all before. All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again. But I wanna switch gears a little bit.
Lola Elites released something on Noster, kind of a statement on Noster yesterday that I I personally believe is, I think she's kinda overblowing things. No no disrespect to Lola. Got a lot of respect for the woman. She's a great journalist. She comes with great information. But this particular one, in my view, because we were seeing, you know, a couple of red candles and it wasn't, like, you know, wasn't really all that great yesterday and, you know, like Monday afternoon or whatever when, you know, Bitcoin hit an all time high and then immediately retraced after, like, 4 seconds at that high. I I don't think that this kinda these kinds of things are helpful for the community at large, and I'm seeing a lot of, I don't know, almost almost sadness over on Noster because, God forbid, that we're not at a $108,000 right now.
But and maybe she's maybe she's right. But David Bailey, this is her post. It says David Bailey just posted the draft of an executive order for the Bitcoin strategic reserve under Trump, and it's an absolute nightmare for anyone using Bitcoin as money. Okay. I'm going to stop right there and pause. That type of language, I just don't believe is all that helpful when you've got a bunch of people going, oh, my God, we're all going to die, you know, looking at charts and doing whatever they do. I don't think it's helpful to couch language that way. It doesn't mean that I'm, you know, not guilty of the same, but I think we need to do a little bit better here on when we release things and what language we use to release them and under what environments we release them in. Does that make sense?
Continuing on, first, the draft order defines Bitcoin as a finite store of value asset akin to digital gold. That's a direct quote from the draft bill. As someone who has lived on bitcoin for a fairly fairly long time, I can say that bitcoin is not merely a store of value asset, but a money for payment and day to day purchases. Defining bitcoin as a store of value asset reinforces the ossification narrative, who needs to move a stonk several times a day, and that's in parentheses, which may put developers at risk when prioritizing changes to BTC to make it more usable as money With this definition, a soft fork to activate covenants may become an issue of United States national security that goes against the United States definition of its primary goals, directly putting developers in the firing line of the United States government.
The draft states that federal agencies such as the United States Marshals Service may not auction seized Bitcoin off, but must contribute them to the strategic reserve. Well, this not only reduces the Bitcoin in circulation available to the public, but additionally sets the incentive for the United States to increase its seizing efforts. Think increased AML KYC. While I'm no fan of the strategic reserve in general, this draft is an even bigger disappointment than senator Lummis' proposed Bitcoin act. To compare this to how El Salvador has implemented bitcoin, which I admit I initially wasn't a fan of either, El Salvador directly gives citizens rights to use bitcoin as money, which is a huge upside to benefit the people and not just the national security state.
No offense, but letting a couple of children that just graduated college and a guy who runs a magazine draft US policy is a scene straight out of Idiocracy. Next time, maybe try speaking to the people actually building and using bitcoin, not just to the boomers and national security goons that sit on the money like a fat kid at the cake buffet. Incredibly unprofessional conduct here by BPI, that's the Bitcoin Policy Institute. A huge risk to anyone using Bitcoin for anything other than an investment and a testament to the people involved being more interested in furthering their own importance than to empower people with a money without state. Sincerely hope that the EO or executive order is drastically changed on all levels and hopefully somehow deemed unconstitutional to protect BTC and the people developing it.
It's strong words. And, you know, there she's not wrong about about some things. So let's I just kinda wanna break this down a little bit. I read Lola also attached a reply to this note that was a couple of pages from the draft executive order that she was talking about, the one that David Bailey the owner of Bitcoin Magazine and one of, I guess, one of the guys over at the Bitcoin Policy Institute at the same time, it was his draft bill. So she posted up a couple of, you know, couple of pictures of the language of the draft bill. So I'm reading this thing and I'm I'm honestly I'm not seeing what she's seeing.
Did they describe it as a store of asset akin to digital gold? Absolutely they did. That is in the language of the bill. However, I'm not seeing how this causes a direct problem for United States citizens or a Kenyan citizen or a Nigerian citizen or a Colombian citizen or a Norwegian citizen from using Bitcoin, however the fuck they wanna use Bitcoin. I'm sorry, but I don't see it. It doesn't mean she's wrong. I'm just I just think this is getting a little bit overblown. Alright? First of all, this is a draft. 2nd of all, we have a bill that's also well, it's actually not a draft. It's a full bill that's going through what's that needs to go through congress by senator Lummis.
Right? So so we already have some interesting competition between the executive branch and the legislative branch as to which branch is going to install the strategic reserve, and I honestly think the executive order is the weaker play. I don't think that we should be using executive orders to do a damn near anything. Right? This needs to be a legislative process. I think there's more beef there. I think there's more strength there. It doesn't matter if I don't like Congress. I'm just saying that when you do something that changes the way a nation thinks or acts about a thing for the length of time that we're going to do it, which is 20 to 25 years. That's what's stated in I think it's 20 years for the, bill that's in legislation, and it's 25 years for what's written in the executive order. When you're on those kind of timescales, this is this needs to be legislation.
I don't know what David Bailey is thinking. I kinda think it's stupid. I I kinda you don't need an executive order to do this unless that bill fails, in which case, sure. Go ahead. See how it runs. But but still, just because it's stated as a digital gold in the executive order, I don't exactly see how that makes it unusable as money. Right? Unless the United States illegalizes you know, makes it illegal to perform transactions, which good fucking luck. I'm going to make transactions no matter what you do. It doesn't matter. I I don't need your permission.
If I get caught and I go to jail, yeah, I could be losing years of my freedom. But that's not really we're not really here to play nice, are we? Or are we? Are we here to simply do what we've always done and be allowed to or or allow ourselves to be, you know, put into smaller and smaller cages? Is that what we're is that what we're here for? Or at one point or another, are we going to go down to Walmart and get a ball sack in the spinal column and figure out, you know what? No. No. We're not I'm not gonna perform violence on you, but no. Absolutely not. In all the people, in all the history that made America what it was, they all took a risk with their personal freedom.
They all I mean, anybody that signed the declaration of independence was signing their death warrant if the United States lost the war against King George. That I they were all gonna be found. They were all gonna be hung. It was all gonna be done in public, And they knew it. It wasn't it wasn't like they were sitting there going, oh, well, it'll be fine. If we lose this war, nobody's gonna give a shit. Oh, that's not what they were thinking. They knew Ben Franklin knew if he lost, if the United States lost that war, that he would be found and he would be strung up and he would lose his life and all of his property. And God forbid, they might even go after any of his relatives. He knew that. And every single other signer of the Declaration of Independence also knew that.
So what are we gonna do? Are we gonna just roll over? Absolutely not. However, there is one thing in here that is kind of troubling, and it also centers on the description of store of value asset and the fact that that store of value asset is part of a strategic reserve. In this particular case, 100% of the strategic Bitcoin reserve, and that is changes to the code in the form of a soft fork. She said she said the soft forking in covenants. I I this actually could be a problem for developers insofar as the United States adopts it adopts Bitcoin as a strategic asset.
It keeps it on its books, and then developers that are not United States citizens change the code. That's an issue. That you cannot blind yourself to that one. And any now now think of it this way. Let's say Russia adopts it, a street a strategic reserve. China does. Australia does, India does, United States does, Canada does, and Mexico does. That's a lot. That's a lot of countries on the face of the planet that are very large countries with a lot of armament. At what point when Bitcoin changes and, say and, say, forks in covenants, whose country's laws were broken?
Right? I mean, it doesn't matter what we think. It's the reality that sucks, and we have to deal with that reality as boots on the ground, as people that are gonna deal with it. So this goes back to me saying, if if you were a developer of freedom technology, why are you using your own name? Now I'm just a podcaster. I don't develop on Bitcoin. I don't develop on Nostr. I don't think anybody really cares what I have to say as far as the United States government is concerned or Indian government or Russian government. I don't think KGB is gonna be knocking at my door because I said Putin sucks. I I just don't think they care enough. They got better fish to fry. But if you're a developer of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Core, well, that changes the that changes the calculus now, doesn't it?
And this is something that I've been thinking of for a while. What would it mean if when nation states start adopting Bitcoin and the people that are actually writing the code for Bitcoin, will they be considered foreign agents? You see where this is going? We're if we continue to be scared to death of everything around us and be always terrified of our governments, then nothing really fundamentally is going to change for humanity. That's what I'm saying. But in order to affect change, no matter what nation state owns anything, the thing that is being changed has to be changed by people who are untouchable.
You don't know where they are. You don't know who they are. They have left you no fucking clue as to their identity whatsoever. I mean, basically, it's it's almost like Satoshi Nakamoto's disappearance was a dress rehearsal for how the other actors on the Bitcoin Core stage need to act. Almost like acting classes. Almost like, here's how it's done. You better figure out how to do it too. So it would be nice if all the developers of core actually quit, and then a brand new set of core developers immediately reassembled, and they were all NIMs and had absolutely scrubbed any possibility that their real identity was the people that quit Bitcoin Core in the first place. I'm just saying, is there a way that we can get these people to stop using their identity so it won't matter if we for if we saw fork in covenants.
All right. So in conclusion, I think this is a little bit overblown as far as the executive order not allowing people to use Bitcoin as money simply because it defined it a certain way. I think it's overblown thinking that the executive order is going to override the legislative part of this function, and I think we're we're talking about something in a little bit I think it's just a little premature because it's not just the United States at a or nation states that we need to be looking at when it comes to strategic reserves of Bitcoin. Right?
An Ohio representative by the name of Derek Maron has introduced the bill to establish its own state Bitcoin reserve. Vince De Aquino from Tecrypt tells us more. The Ohio state representative Derek Barron is following in the footsteps of the other representatives across the United States, bringing forward a bill that would authorize the state's treasury to invest public funds in bitcoin. House Bill 703, known as the Ohio Bitcoin Reserve Act, would establish a dedicated bitcoin fund within the state treasury while investing the state treasurer with discretionary power to purchase bitcoin.
The US dollar is being rapidly devalued and our state treasurer should have the authority and flexibility to invest in bitcoin when determining proper asset allocation. Ohio must embrace technology and protect tax dollars from eroding. I hate tax dollars, but the bill amends section 2981.12 and enacts section 135.146 of Ohio's revised code, but does not mandate any specific Bitcoin purchases or portfolio allocations. Quote, Bitcoin provides a vehicle to supplement our state's portfolio and preserve public funds from losing value. Merritt stated arguing that through the legislation, the Ohio state government could harness the power of Bitcoin, and that's in quotes, harness the power of Bitcoin to strengthen its state's finances. The Ohio representative said he anticipates the incoming Trump administration will pursue a national Bitcoin reserve program, referencing referencing a proposal by senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. The bill's introduction comes as the current legislative session nears its end.
Marin expects the legislation to serve as a framework for lawmakers to address in the upcoming session in 2025. Ohio joins a growing list of other United States state representatives putting forth similar legislation. In November of 2024, rep Mike Cabell or Cable. Yeah. Cabell, c a b e l l. I think it's Cabell. Yeah. Cabell, introduced the Pennsylvania Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Act. Shortly after, Texas followed suit. Representative Giovanni filed house bill 1598 on December 12th aiming to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve funded through donations. The bill seeks to authorize state agencies to accept Bitcoin for payments, including taxes and fees. And in October, a separate tax bill was proposed by Ohio State Senator Niraj Antani to accept Bitcoin and other crypto as payment.
And if I remember correctly, Ohio this is not Ohio's first rodeo when it comes to Bitcoin because if I remember correctly, they allowed the state pass something that allowed people to pay their state in state income tax or other other things with bitcoin but nobody used it everything was you know we're always so early that it it's sort of like hit or miss as to whether or not we're going to time this shit right but so now Ohio's definitely on deck so we got 3 out of the out of the 50 states of the United States that have shit on the table recommending in legal language a Bitcoin strategic reserve.
But Arthur Hayes sees trouble on the horizon. Helen Partz, Cointelegraph. Trump's inauguration may trigger a crypto sell off according to Arthur Hayes. And if you don't remember, he was the CEO of BitMex. Cryptocurrency market commentators and observers have predicted positive market trends associated with president-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in January of this coming year, but BitMex cofounder, Arthur Hayes, has got a different perspective. Hayes cautioned against the high expectations of quick crypto policy changes promised by Trump, highlighting a gap between market anticipation and the realities of policy implementation.
In his Trump Truth blog post published yesterday, December 17th, Hayes said that his investment fund, Maelstrom, plans to trim some positions early to buy later at lower prices in the first half of twenty twenty five. Good luck to you, sir. I I I mean, this is the this is the classic mistake of I'm going to time the market. And just because you're Arthur Hayes and have been in the game since the very beginning days of Bitcoin does not mean that somehow or another you're not immune to the stupidity of trying to time a market.
Anyway, unlike many forecasters, Hayes doubts that the US and other countries will start creating national Bitcoin reserves anytime soon. The market believes that Trump and his people can immediately achieve economic and political miracles, Hayes wrote, highlighting a gap between crypto investor expectations and, quote, no politically acceptable solutions or at least available quickly anyway. The enactment of any crypto policy changes would likely take significantly more time than the market might expect. Hayes predicted, adding, quote, the market will instantly wake up to the reality that Trump has, at best, 1 year to enact any policy changes on or around January 20th.
This realization will lead to a vicious sell off in crypto and other Trump 2.0 equity trades. Hayes forecasted a harrowing dump around Trump's inauguration day before crypto enters a crack up boom phase later in 2025. As Hayes expects the market to experience a sharp drop around Trump's inauguration in January, maelstrom will clear some positions expecting to buy at lower prices. Yes. You've already said that. Here's a direct quote from Hayes. Maelstrom will be lightening up on certain positions in advance hoping to rebuy some core positions at lower prices sometime during the first half of twenty twenty five.
The businessman justified the sale by saying that long term investors are underinvested for the rest of the bull market. While many hodlers most often end up selling too early. That's interesting. Long term investors are underinvested for the rest of the bull market is a sentence that I really can't pull that apart without thinking, you know, about what he's trying to say there. Under invested for the rest of the bull market. I think the only thing that he could possibly be saying here is that there's 2 kinds of people in the market right now. There well, there's one kind of person with 2 different hemispheres of thinking.
There's people that own Bitcoin. Okay. There you go. Now there's 2 types of Bitcoin owner. Those that don't have enough Bitcoin and hodlers who most often end up selling too early. Well, gee, Arthur, it sounds like you might be thinking about, you know, selling some positions in Bitcoin as well. Maybe you're too early. I mean, honestly, the hubris here has got is a little concerning, but, quote, we are committed to admitting defeat if the bull market steamrolls through January 20th, licking our wounds, and getting back up, on the bowl, I will be buying dips and rips, end quote.
Cryptocurrency markets have entered a massive rally since Trump's victory in the presidential election in early November with Bitcoin surging past a 100 k for the first time in history by early December. Yeah. Well, of course, we all saw that. Several analysts have predicted that Trump's crypto policy changes will likely bring Bitcoin and decentralized finance into the mainstream. Singapore based crypto platform, Matrixport, said that it expects Bitcoin to have a strong start in 2025, adding that many investors are likely to look back and wonder why they didn't accumulate more. Well, welcome to Bitcoin, dude. Still, Hayes isn't alone in expecting some bearish market action in early 2025.
According to Protos, there has been a market rumor that MicroStrategy may enter a blackout period in January 2025, which would halt the issuing of shares and convertible bonds to purchase more BTC. Well, if they clear their $42,000,000,000 that they want to issue in equities and debt so they can have cash on hand to buy bitcoin, If they exhaust that, then why wouldn't they? Because that's the plan. I mean, he I think, you know, I think he's shooting for, like, having, you know, a 1,000,000 Bitcoin, I think, is is the goal. And if he gets a 1,000,000 Bitcoin, he's not gonna be doing Bitcoin any more favors by buying more, honestly.
But we will have to see. And in the meantime, let's run the numbers. CNBC Futures and Commodities, but first, building permits numbers have come in. The projected was 1,430,000,000. The previous was 1,410,000. The actual 1 and a half 1000000 permits have been issued, which means that, well, people will look at that and say the economy is recovering. And now now you can be almost guaranteed that the Fed, whenever they announce how many rate cuts that they're going to give in 2025, I think that the percentage that they were that they were going to say 3 instead of 4 has jumped from maybe a 60% chance to damn near a 95% chance.
Okay. We still don't know what the Fed interest rate decision is. That comes in about an hour from now. And right now, it is just flipped over to 10:0:5 Pacific Standard Time. Now let's do futures and commodities. I got oil. West Texas Intermediate is up a point to $70.75. Brent Norsee is up over a half point to 73.62. Natural gas, this time not going in the opposite direction, 2.6% to the upside to $3.39, probably because winter is getting getting kinda chilly. Gasoline is up 0.58 percent to a buck 95 a gallon, but most shiny metal rocks are doing poorly today. Gold is down by a third of a point. Silver is down 0.7%.
Platinum down over a point. Copper is the only one in the green. It's up by 1 third of a point, and palladium is down 0.87%. Ag is mostly in the red today on their futures. Biggest winner today is gonna be chocolate. 6, almost 7 full points to the upside today. I don't know what's going on with chocolate, but the biggest loser is soybeans, 2 a half percent to the downside, and live cattle down 0.86%, lean hogs up a third, feeder cattle down one half. The Dow is actually in the green today for, breaking its 9 day losing streak, 0.41% to the upside. S and P is up a 5th of a point. Nasdaq is moving sideways as is the S and P Mini. Likely, they're waiting to see what, fed the Fed chairman actually says.
Okay. Let's see. What's Bitcoin doing? Well, we're gonna find out. $104,760, that is a $2,070,000,000,000 market cap. We can now purchase, only 39.6 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 bitcoin of which there are 19,797,689.11 of. Average fees per block are low, 0.09 BTC taken in fees on average on a per block basis. There are 109 blocks carrying 281,000 unconfirmed transactions, waiting to clear at high priority rates of 12 satoshis per vbyte. Low priorities get you in at 10. 785.8 exahashes per second is the hash rate on a 1 week rolling average, so the security of Bitcoin is confirmed. From the 10 AM reversal, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin, and I got Seabroch with a line of fours, 4,444 sats.
Thank you, sir. Stay humble and stack sats. No. Thank you. That's a that's a nice little bump there. Tico with a 1,000 sats says, nanya, join us in Costa Rica. Next Bitcoin Freedom Festival by Bitcoin Jungle is now a music festival with Bitcoin workshops and talks. Awake Earth Festival. That's the name. It will be on February 20th through 24th 2025 at the AWAKE Center in Uvita, Costa Rica, and then he gives a wake earth festival dot com. Awake earth earth festival dot com. We've combined forces with awake for earth festival to bring a different type of event to the Bitcoin conference space. We're combining a music festival with Bitcoin workshops and talks.
February 20th through 23rd, there will be some Bitcoin activities, but will primarily focus on music with internationally recognized artists, healing workshops and ceremonies, educational talks, and engaging conversations. February 24th is a full on Bitcoin day where the entire venue will be focused on Bitcoin. Our goal with this partnership is to attract new faces into the Bitcoin space and bring people that would normally not attend a traditional Bitcoin conference. It's more beautiful than ever. We know it's different. We know you're going to love it. Don't miss out.
Join us at a one of a kind Bitcoin event in one of the most beautiful event venues on earth. That's awake earth festival.com. [email protected]. Again, February 20th through 24th 2025. And if you need that again, if for whatever reason, all this stuff is gonna be in the show notes or you can just get a hold of me on Noster and I will make sure that I get you in touch with Tico. That's at Tico, t I c o. God's death. 537. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Wartime with 333 says, Tone Vaz Mods listens to your show now. Interesting how it all come full circle.
Tone Vaz mods. Tone Vaz's mods. I don't know what that is. What tone vases mods? Moderators? Hey, it would be cool if you did. Pies with a 100 says, thank you, sir. No, thank you. And I think that's it. Yep. That's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use. First half of the show, I gave you some pretty glum news. Let's brighten it up a little bit. Atlas 21 is has this one written, Bitcoin ETFs surpass gold, a milestone in the US market. Yep. It happened. It really did. It actually happened. Bitcoin ETFs encompassing spot, futures, and leveraged products have overtaken gold ETFs in terms of assets under management, reaching $129,250,000,000 compared to $128,000,000,000 for gold funds. This milestone, confirmed by Vettel Lunde of k 33 Research and Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, marks a shift in the institutional investment landscape. However, spot gold ETFs still hold more assets than spot Bitcoin ETFs with a 125,000,000,000 in gold compared to a 121,000,000,000 in Bitcoin.
That's probably going to flip here pretty damn quick. The rise of spot Bitcoin ETFs launched a mere 11 months ago, contrast sharply with the 2 decade history of gold ETFs highlighting the growing interest of institutional investors into Bitcoin. The 12 spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US now collectively hold over 1,100,000 BTC. Bitcoin ETFs now represent 1% of all US ETFs with BlackRock's Ibit standing out as the most successful ETF launch since 2014, surpassing approximately 2,850 competing products. Holy shit, man. With daily inflows of half a $1,000,000,000, analysts predict that by 2025, spot Bitcoin ETFs will definitely or definitively surpass gold ETFs, cementing Bitcoin's position as a premier institutional investment asset.
So, yep, the flippening, it happened, not the way the ether ether heads wanted, but it happened. Alright. So, again, continuing on with the brighter, with the brighter look at at what's going on with Bitcoin. China may be on the verge of ending its Bitcoin ban according to Vivek Sin out of Bitcoin Magazine. Look, I think it's only a matter of time before China pulls a complete 180 on its Bitcoin ban. Yeah. They outlawed trading and mining back in 2021, but, honestly, a lot has changed since then, especially this year. Bitcoin's momentum globally has been insane. We've seen US president elect Donald Trump calling to stockpile Bitcoin, Bitcoin ETFs get approved, Fed chair Jerome Powell calling Bitcoin digital gold, Larry Fink flipping pro Bitcoin, and even Putin saying nice things about it.
With all of this happening, I wouldn't be shocked if China has already started quietly stacking sats. Here's why I think that. China doesn't like to announce what it's doing beforehand. It's just not how they operate. Former Binance CEO CZ talked about this recently at the Bitcoin MENA or the MENA conference in Abu Dhabi, saying that while the US loves to make big public statements about upcoming policies, Asian countries prefer to move in silence. You know, that's kinda his that's kind of a historical way that they that they work. And let's not forget, China doesn't have elections. They don't need to win over public opinions like Trump does. If they're making moves with Bitcoin, they'll do it quietly, and we'll find out when they're ready to make it official. Now with Trump's big push for Bitcoin and crypto, I can't see China sitting on the sidelines for too long.
This is turning into a global race. And if China wants to stay competitive, they can't afford to miss the Bitcoin train. And my gut tells me they're already planning to unban Bitcoin and crypto, and I wouldn't be surprised if it happens as early as the Q1 of 2020 5, especially if Trump takes office. That is an interesting sentence. If Trump takes office, what are you suggesting, dude? Another big hint, Hong Kong. China has a long history of using Hong Kong as a sandbox to test things before rolling them out on the mainland. And this year, we've seen Hong Kong make major moves, approving bitcoin and crypto ETFs and greenlighting more crypto exchanges.
Let's be real. This isn't a coincidence. They are planning to eliminate crypto taxes for institutions. I think China is watching carefully, and these are early steps towards a broader shift. In my opinion, and it is opinion only, China has likely been quietly accumulating Bitcoin all along. When the time is right, they'll unban it. And not just to compete with the US, but to lead. Watch this space. I think it's going to happen much sooner than most people expect. Well, that's my question to my audience. What do you think would happen if China just said we're unbanning Bitcoin?
All of it. Let's say, let's go the full mine. You can mine in China. You can use it as money in China. You can own it in China. You can, I don't know, talk about it on social media in China, and you can pay your bills to the Communist Party because you said something mean about Xi on Twitter? As of fine. Right? I'm just saying. Let's say all 9 yards, Bitcoin completely unbanned in China, and that is a an official statement from the Chinese Communist Party across all major newswires globally. What do you think happens to Bitcoin? And I'm not if you want to speculate on price, fine. If you want to say what it might mean geopolitically, I'm I'm all about that too. I'm talking about anything anything at all. What do you think happens to Bitcoin if China says, you know what? We were wrong. We're unbending it.
Let me know in a boostagram or let me know on on Noster, and I will try to get your opinions up on the show. Okay. So this is from the block and Danny Park is writing it. The US has imposed sanctions on North Korea's crypto laundering network. I'm not sure how many more sanctions we can actually put on North Korea, but the US Treasury Department has sanctioned 2 individuals oh, okay. Individuals. 2 individuals and one entity for laundering cryptocurrency for the North Korean Democratic People's Republic of Korea. 2 Chinese nationals helped the crypto money laundering as part of a more extensive illicit network headed by a sanctioned DPRK banking representative named Sim Hyun Somp, according to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control.
Li and Zhang, these two Chinese guys, worked at a front company in the United Arab Emirates named Green Alpine Trading, which allegedly served as a core component of the money laundering network. The company has been designated as a sanctioned organization. The DPRK continues to use agents and proxies to access the international financial system to conduct illicit financial activities, including fraudulent IT work. Oh, fraudulent IT work, really? Digital asset heist and money laundering in support of its unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs. Wow. Weapons of mass destruction. Are we still are we still swimming in the shallow end of the pool here, boys and girls? What the whatever, dude.
North Korea backed hacker groups, including Lazarus, are accused of orchestrating some of the largest hacks in crypto such as the $600,000,000 hack of the Ronin Ethereum side chain in 20 22. Like, I could care less what happens to Ethereum. And then they go on. So, anyway, yeah, United States is still fumbling around with North Korea. I honestly I don't think that they're as dangerous as everybody seems to think that North Korea is. I mean, yeah, sure. They got a missile program. I've never seen them actually land a missile anywhere close to, you know, to Japan. They always seem to fall into the sea of Japan. I I think we're giving them entirely too much credit. Doesn't mean not to watch them, but dude, I yeah. I think it's honestly it's a probably a waste of time for OFAC to be piddling around with these idiots. Okay.
Now into into our back into our world, AlbiHub version 1.12.0 improved relay connectivity and more. AlbiHub is an open source hub for setting up and or controlling your lightning node and wallet from various applications that support noster wallet connect. Quote, in this release, AlbiHub has improved relay connectivity, increased support for paying Bolt 11 invoices and LND channel modifications. There have also been some minor ui improvements according to the project so what's new pay zero amount invoices migrate to vss fire channel open and closure events in lnd improve alb account connection card, add environment variables to customize LDK listening addresses. So this seems to be not a major upgrade, but a minor upgrade that may, may increase throughput in the albihub network and lightning its connection to lightning network. And albihub is my go to, lightning wallet because it is self custodial now.
And if you want to use albihub and you don't have your own lightning node you can do that but it does cost you money and I while I agree that that blows chunks they got to pay their bills So this is a good time to learn how to spin up a bitcoin full node because you have to have one as the back end of a lightning node and learn how to use lightning on your own node. It's honestly guys it is not that hard. It's really interesting and once you become comfortable with it you start going why the hell was I so concerned about the loss of wallet of satoshi. I wasn't because I was already able to make payments through my own lightning node and I was able to do it from remote locations. I could be in, like, freaking Cambodia and as long as I've got internet connection somehow I can access my node or I can access my node via a lightning wallet on my phone that I'm using to pay somebody.
And on honest and it just works. Right? I was always able to do that. But with light with AlbieHub, it's become really really simple to just chain any nostril app that I want to be able to read my wallet and draw from it if I want it to and I don't I don't have to let it do that. Please please please stop like there was somebody yesterday and I think it was like somebody that was pretty high ups suggested that NWC or nostril wallet connect stopped working. This is not true. Nostril wallet connect while it was built by the guys at Albi Hub, is not the Albi custodial wallet, which is the thing that stopped working, and they did that on purpose. It wasn't an accident. It didn't fall. It wasn't like Lord Vader came and chopped it in half with a fucking saber or something like that. No. They did it because they don't want the custodial and regulatory headaches that come along with cust custodying somebody else's satoshis.
But they had already built nostril wallet connect, which allows nostril applications to connect to different and variable, lightning wallets. Most applicably, the Albie hub system. Right? So if you don't understand what any of that means, get a hold of me on Nostra. Just ask me. It's like, could you explain this better and and ask me what it is that you don't understand about Nostra Wallet Connect, AlbieHub, and why Albie the Albie guys decided to get rid of their custodial wallet. And I'll I'll do my best to explain it. It doesn't mean that I'll be all that effective, but I will do my best to explain it.
And No Strudel version 0.42.0 has been released and it includes something about apple sauce. And let's find out more directly from the source. Hazard 149. HZRD 149. He's the head honcho over there at Nostrudel, which is a Nostra client and is one of my go to desktop clients. It is sort of like an army switchblade. It's got all kinds of neat stuff on it and it seems that he's made it a bit faster. Let's find out more. Finally, another version of Nostril. I keep telling myself I'm gonna do more frequent releases, but then, you know, well time keeps getting away from me. This release comes with a bunch of new features and most importantly a lot of cleanup.
So here's the features. OLAS Media Post. You can now view a simple feed of media posts made on olas. App. That's Pablo F7Z's latest nostril client which is sort of like an Instagram looking client. Anyway, you can now view the simple feed of media post made on Olas in the app and comment on them using nip 22 comments. There is a simple GIF picker. This was mostly a test, but now there is a simple gift picker and barely functional search that is based on k1063 events. I don't know what those are. If you want a better search and to help populate the Nostra gift library, you can use gift buddy.lolcreatedbylemon.
And guys, gift buddy.lolbylemon is slick. It's fast and it's dead simple. You just like you you get you you just go to giftbuddy.lolgifbdy.lol. Use the search bar and say, I don't know, laser eyed Leota. And then when a whole bunch of laser eyed Leota GIFs come up you just hit you just tap 1 on your phone and it just automatically copies it. And on like a web browser or like on a desktop if you click it it just copies the address for that GIF and you just paste it into whatever the hell it is you want to paste it. It works like a charm and it's it's just beautiful. Thank you, Lemon, for making that. There is a new support view in Nostrudel.
The tiny support button at the bottom of the side menu now hides a zap leaderboard that shows top supporters and any custom messages that they leave. Now there are favorite DVM feeds, you know, data vending machines. You can now favorite a DVM feed in the discover view. There are tools under notes. This is now a simpler tools menu under notes and threads. There is searching local cache relays. If you're using Nostr Relay Tray, the search will now use it by default for searching, which should make it a little faster and more reliable. And there are some other small features and bug fixes. Now here's a statement on this thing called applesauce. And I'm still not understanding it fully, but I'm gonna give it to you since, you know, well, I owe it to you. Over the past few months, I've been doing tons of cleanup on the core of Nostrudel and extracting it out into a friendly Nostr SDK called Applesauce. Okay. So, Nostr SDK named Applesauce.
It's very much a work in progress, but the idea with these libraries is to help myself and maybe others build the user interface layer of Nostra apps and eventually make Nostradle just another app that is built with applesauce. If you're a developer and another Nostra SDK sounds interesting to you, you can check it out, at the getting started documents and that would be at hazard hzrd149. Github.ioforward/ Applesauceforward/introductionsforward/gettingstarted.html. Okay. So, all this, all of these links that I gave you today that I'm either reading from news stories or I'm looking at this note that's over on Noster just now, All of this is gonna be in the show notes. If you had any question about what the hell was going on, look in the show notes. If I didn't, for whatever reason, I didn't include something that you wanna know about, just do just get a hold of me. You can even you can even email me at [email protected] if you want.
Just, you know, put something in the, oh, in the regarding line that says something like, or referencing r e. Whatever r e stands for that says something like a question about, show 1011 or something like that. Do that, and I'll I'll I'll see if I can get back to you. So that is that was it. That was the that was the entire docket for today's show. Again, I'm going to be on Once Bitten podcast tomorrow, with Daniel Prince. I appreciate the, invite. I have literally no freaking idea what we're gonna talk about and, honestly, I kinda like it that way. So look for me there, and I'll see you on the other side.
This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 9:30 AM Pacific Standard Time. It is the 18th day of December 2024, and this is episode 1011 of Bitcoin, and we're taking a breather.
In more ways than one. We sure are. I'm gonna get to that. There's a I'm gonna start off with this Bitcoin taking a breather thing, but I'm going to be taking a breather, probably not gonna bring you a Bitcoin and tomorrow, and I'm certainly not going to be doing it on Friday because I will be on the road with the family on a 2 day drive to Southwest Colorado. Please please keep us in your prayers or cross your fingers for us or tell us to go break legs or whatever it is that you have to do because it's an awful long drive when you've got all of your treasure in the same car with you all at once. And I would appreciate some, you know, well wishing and whatnot like that. But tomorrow, I'm not going to be bringing you one because I'm going to be on the Once Bitten podcast with Daniel Prince. Y'all might know him as Princey.
I'm really excited about that. I have no idea what he wants to talk about. Generally speaking, in in situations where I'm invited to come on a podcast, I try not to anticipate a damn thing. I there's nothing I just figure, unless I'm given an agenda, I have nothing to prepare for. So I have no idea what Daniel has, has in store, but it should be fun. Daniel Prince has been in the space for a long, long time. Scott, one of the, top Bitcoin podcast in the space. Really excited about doing this with Daniel, and I appreciate him inviting me on. Now to the news, Bitcoin takes a breather after doji candle in a cautious pre federal reserve announcement derisking.
And this is sort of what I was thinking, was happening yesterday when we were when I was talking about it. But let's see what CoinDesk and Omkar Godbold has to say about it. Bitcoin has taken a breather, experiencing selling pressure after Tuesday's indecisive price action marked by a doji candle. This seems to be a classic case of traders derisking in anticipation of an expected hawkish Fed rate cut later today. The leading cryptocurrency by market value traded around 103,750 marking a 2% drop for the day according to trading view and coin desk data. Prices have surged to a record high of over $108,000 on Tuesday but failed to maintain those gains ending the UTC on the day flat.
That formed a doji, a candlestick pattern that signifies indecision and potential bullish exhaustion when seen at record highs. As expected, Bitcoin's decline has resulted in even larger losses for alternative cryptocurrencies, but some majors such as a whole bunch of shitcoins are experiencing something different, and I just don't freaking care. The Fed will announce the rate decision, the interest rate dot plot projections, and economic forecast at 1400 EST. Federal chair Jerome Powell's press conference will be held 1 half hour later.
The consensus is, and here's the important part, is that the Fed will cut rates by 25 basis points to the 4.25 to 4.5 percent range marking a total easing of 100 basis points since September. But the dot plot is expected to show fewer rate cuts for next year, and that's the thing. That's what's going on right there. Quote, the risk of slightly stronger near term growth with the threat of higher inflation, tariffs putting up prices of goods, and immigration controls potentially lifting wages and costs in the likes of agriculture, construction, and hospitality sectors means that we expect them to signal only 3 rate cuts in 2025.
Previously, they had suggested 4 rate cuts, Analyst at ING said in a note to clients, quote, we look for 25 bp of cuts per quarter in 2025 with a terminal rate of around 3.75% in the Q3, analyst added. These so called hawkish expectations are likely fueling the derisking in the crypto market that is looking for reasons to correct having seen prices for BTC soar from 70,000 to well over $100,000 in less than 2 months. It's important to note that fewer rate cuts do not necessarily mean tightening. Easing is still on the table, and this suggests that the path of least resistance for risk assets remains tilted towards the upside.
Alright. So my take on this is that we had some numbers come in that it kind of kind of, well suggested that inflation is not as under control as they say. Now when I say inflation is under control, please understand I that I know full well that inflation is not anywhere close to under control for the regular person on the street. I'm talking about the metrics that the federal government uses to lie to the American public to make sure that they think that everything is okay. So please understand that there is a working dichotomy at play here. They're full of shit, and they always have been. But this these are the numbers that they are releasing that tells the market what's going to happen, alright, or at least signals to the market, and then the market starts making moves, and then the market does what the market does. And we saw it wasn't it wasn't just Bitcoin yesterday. I mean, the Dow has had, like, 9 straight days. In fact, let me get that back up.
Let me get my trading view back up, and let's look at at a couple of things here. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Okay. The Dow Jones, I'm gonna put on the day chart and count the number of candles on the downside. So we went from around 45,000 on the Dow Jones Industrials to a bottom of 43,732. And it took 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 red candles in a row. We're talking about 9 straight days to the downside for the Dow Jones, and that hasn't been seen since somewhere around 1971, I think one analyst was saying. Today, we've got a green candle. We're we're back up off those lows. But I think that what was going on during those 9 days is that there were some signals in the back rooms that were saying, hey.
Yeah. They're gonna go ahead and cut rates this time, but instead of 4 rate cuts for 2025, there's they're only gonna do 3. And I would imagine that that is because they don't have inflation where they want it. But if they reverse course and keep rates neutral, and I I certainly don't expect them to actually raise any rates, but if they were to keep rates neutral on this particular Fed decision, it would liquefy the markets. Good lord. We've got a windstorm going on outside that is, rattling stuff around. So if you hear if you hear screaming and cats meowing in the background, it is possibly because we got a storm going on. Anyway, I'm just saying, that seems to be what's going on because like I said, it wasn't just Bitcoin that is having a down, you know, the down path, a couple of down days for the past thing. It was the entire Dow.
I'm looking at all kinds of stuff that was is flashing in the red, and it had was happening over the last couple of days. I think it's just end of year jitters. We're coming up on a Fed rate decision, and people get skittish. And that's just shit, bro. That's just the way it is. So I don't think that we should get as nervous as we have a tendency to get. Doesn't mean that, you know, bad shit won't happen. I'm just saying we've seen it all before. All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again. But I wanna switch gears a little bit.
Lola Elites released something on Noster, kind of a statement on Noster yesterday that I I personally believe is, I think she's kinda overblowing things. No no disrespect to Lola. Got a lot of respect for the woman. She's a great journalist. She comes with great information. But this particular one, in my view, because we were seeing, you know, a couple of red candles and it wasn't, like, you know, wasn't really all that great yesterday and, you know, like Monday afternoon or whatever when, you know, Bitcoin hit an all time high and then immediately retraced after, like, 4 seconds at that high. I I don't think that this kinda these kinds of things are helpful for the community at large, and I'm seeing a lot of, I don't know, almost almost sadness over on Noster because, God forbid, that we're not at a $108,000 right now.
But and maybe she's maybe she's right. But David Bailey, this is her post. It says David Bailey just posted the draft of an executive order for the Bitcoin strategic reserve under Trump, and it's an absolute nightmare for anyone using Bitcoin as money. Okay. I'm going to stop right there and pause. That type of language, I just don't believe is all that helpful when you've got a bunch of people going, oh, my God, we're all going to die, you know, looking at charts and doing whatever they do. I don't think it's helpful to couch language that way. It doesn't mean that I'm, you know, not guilty of the same, but I think we need to do a little bit better here on when we release things and what language we use to release them and under what environments we release them in. Does that make sense?
Continuing on, first, the draft order defines Bitcoin as a finite store of value asset akin to digital gold. That's a direct quote from the draft bill. As someone who has lived on bitcoin for a fairly fairly long time, I can say that bitcoin is not merely a store of value asset, but a money for payment and day to day purchases. Defining bitcoin as a store of value asset reinforces the ossification narrative, who needs to move a stonk several times a day, and that's in parentheses, which may put developers at risk when prioritizing changes to BTC to make it more usable as money With this definition, a soft fork to activate covenants may become an issue of United States national security that goes against the United States definition of its primary goals, directly putting developers in the firing line of the United States government.
The draft states that federal agencies such as the United States Marshals Service may not auction seized Bitcoin off, but must contribute them to the strategic reserve. Well, this not only reduces the Bitcoin in circulation available to the public, but additionally sets the incentive for the United States to increase its seizing efforts. Think increased AML KYC. While I'm no fan of the strategic reserve in general, this draft is an even bigger disappointment than senator Lummis' proposed Bitcoin act. To compare this to how El Salvador has implemented bitcoin, which I admit I initially wasn't a fan of either, El Salvador directly gives citizens rights to use bitcoin as money, which is a huge upside to benefit the people and not just the national security state.
No offense, but letting a couple of children that just graduated college and a guy who runs a magazine draft US policy is a scene straight out of Idiocracy. Next time, maybe try speaking to the people actually building and using bitcoin, not just to the boomers and national security goons that sit on the money like a fat kid at the cake buffet. Incredibly unprofessional conduct here by BPI, that's the Bitcoin Policy Institute. A huge risk to anyone using Bitcoin for anything other than an investment and a testament to the people involved being more interested in furthering their own importance than to empower people with a money without state. Sincerely hope that the EO or executive order is drastically changed on all levels and hopefully somehow deemed unconstitutional to protect BTC and the people developing it.
It's strong words. And, you know, there she's not wrong about about some things. So let's I just kinda wanna break this down a little bit. I read Lola also attached a reply to this note that was a couple of pages from the draft executive order that she was talking about, the one that David Bailey the owner of Bitcoin Magazine and one of, I guess, one of the guys over at the Bitcoin Policy Institute at the same time, it was his draft bill. So she posted up a couple of, you know, couple of pictures of the language of the draft bill. So I'm reading this thing and I'm I'm honestly I'm not seeing what she's seeing.
Did they describe it as a store of asset akin to digital gold? Absolutely they did. That is in the language of the bill. However, I'm not seeing how this causes a direct problem for United States citizens or a Kenyan citizen or a Nigerian citizen or a Colombian citizen or a Norwegian citizen from using Bitcoin, however the fuck they wanna use Bitcoin. I'm sorry, but I don't see it. It doesn't mean she's wrong. I'm just I just think this is getting a little bit overblown. Alright? First of all, this is a draft. 2nd of all, we have a bill that's also well, it's actually not a draft. It's a full bill that's going through what's that needs to go through congress by senator Lummis.
Right? So so we already have some interesting competition between the executive branch and the legislative branch as to which branch is going to install the strategic reserve, and I honestly think the executive order is the weaker play. I don't think that we should be using executive orders to do a damn near anything. Right? This needs to be a legislative process. I think there's more beef there. I think there's more strength there. It doesn't matter if I don't like Congress. I'm just saying that when you do something that changes the way a nation thinks or acts about a thing for the length of time that we're going to do it, which is 20 to 25 years. That's what's stated in I think it's 20 years for the, bill that's in legislation, and it's 25 years for what's written in the executive order. When you're on those kind of timescales, this is this needs to be legislation.
I don't know what David Bailey is thinking. I kinda think it's stupid. I I kinda you don't need an executive order to do this unless that bill fails, in which case, sure. Go ahead. See how it runs. But but still, just because it's stated as a digital gold in the executive order, I don't exactly see how that makes it unusable as money. Right? Unless the United States illegalizes you know, makes it illegal to perform transactions, which good fucking luck. I'm going to make transactions no matter what you do. It doesn't matter. I I don't need your permission.
If I get caught and I go to jail, yeah, I could be losing years of my freedom. But that's not really we're not really here to play nice, are we? Or are we? Are we here to simply do what we've always done and be allowed to or or allow ourselves to be, you know, put into smaller and smaller cages? Is that what we're is that what we're here for? Or at one point or another, are we going to go down to Walmart and get a ball sack in the spinal column and figure out, you know what? No. No. We're not I'm not gonna perform violence on you, but no. Absolutely not. In all the people, in all the history that made America what it was, they all took a risk with their personal freedom.
They all I mean, anybody that signed the declaration of independence was signing their death warrant if the United States lost the war against King George. That I they were all gonna be found. They were all gonna be hung. It was all gonna be done in public, And they knew it. It wasn't it wasn't like they were sitting there going, oh, well, it'll be fine. If we lose this war, nobody's gonna give a shit. Oh, that's not what they were thinking. They knew Ben Franklin knew if he lost, if the United States lost that war, that he would be found and he would be strung up and he would lose his life and all of his property. And God forbid, they might even go after any of his relatives. He knew that. And every single other signer of the Declaration of Independence also knew that.
So what are we gonna do? Are we gonna just roll over? Absolutely not. However, there is one thing in here that is kind of troubling, and it also centers on the description of store of value asset and the fact that that store of value asset is part of a strategic reserve. In this particular case, 100% of the strategic Bitcoin reserve, and that is changes to the code in the form of a soft fork. She said she said the soft forking in covenants. I I this actually could be a problem for developers insofar as the United States adopts it adopts Bitcoin as a strategic asset.
It keeps it on its books, and then developers that are not United States citizens change the code. That's an issue. That you cannot blind yourself to that one. And any now now think of it this way. Let's say Russia adopts it, a street a strategic reserve. China does. Australia does, India does, United States does, Canada does, and Mexico does. That's a lot. That's a lot of countries on the face of the planet that are very large countries with a lot of armament. At what point when Bitcoin changes and, say and, say, forks in covenants, whose country's laws were broken?
Right? I mean, it doesn't matter what we think. It's the reality that sucks, and we have to deal with that reality as boots on the ground, as people that are gonna deal with it. So this goes back to me saying, if if you were a developer of freedom technology, why are you using your own name? Now I'm just a podcaster. I don't develop on Bitcoin. I don't develop on Nostr. I don't think anybody really cares what I have to say as far as the United States government is concerned or Indian government or Russian government. I don't think KGB is gonna be knocking at my door because I said Putin sucks. I I just don't think they care enough. They got better fish to fry. But if you're a developer of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Core, well, that changes the that changes the calculus now, doesn't it?
And this is something that I've been thinking of for a while. What would it mean if when nation states start adopting Bitcoin and the people that are actually writing the code for Bitcoin, will they be considered foreign agents? You see where this is going? We're if we continue to be scared to death of everything around us and be always terrified of our governments, then nothing really fundamentally is going to change for humanity. That's what I'm saying. But in order to affect change, no matter what nation state owns anything, the thing that is being changed has to be changed by people who are untouchable.
You don't know where they are. You don't know who they are. They have left you no fucking clue as to their identity whatsoever. I mean, basically, it's it's almost like Satoshi Nakamoto's disappearance was a dress rehearsal for how the other actors on the Bitcoin Core stage need to act. Almost like acting classes. Almost like, here's how it's done. You better figure out how to do it too. So it would be nice if all the developers of core actually quit, and then a brand new set of core developers immediately reassembled, and they were all NIMs and had absolutely scrubbed any possibility that their real identity was the people that quit Bitcoin Core in the first place. I'm just saying, is there a way that we can get these people to stop using their identity so it won't matter if we for if we saw fork in covenants.
All right. So in conclusion, I think this is a little bit overblown as far as the executive order not allowing people to use Bitcoin as money simply because it defined it a certain way. I think it's overblown thinking that the executive order is going to override the legislative part of this function, and I think we're we're talking about something in a little bit I think it's just a little premature because it's not just the United States at a or nation states that we need to be looking at when it comes to strategic reserves of Bitcoin. Right?
An Ohio representative by the name of Derek Maron has introduced the bill to establish its own state Bitcoin reserve. Vince De Aquino from Tecrypt tells us more. The Ohio state representative Derek Barron is following in the footsteps of the other representatives across the United States, bringing forward a bill that would authorize the state's treasury to invest public funds in bitcoin. House Bill 703, known as the Ohio Bitcoin Reserve Act, would establish a dedicated bitcoin fund within the state treasury while investing the state treasurer with discretionary power to purchase bitcoin.
The US dollar is being rapidly devalued and our state treasurer should have the authority and flexibility to invest in bitcoin when determining proper asset allocation. Ohio must embrace technology and protect tax dollars from eroding. I hate tax dollars, but the bill amends section 2981.12 and enacts section 135.146 of Ohio's revised code, but does not mandate any specific Bitcoin purchases or portfolio allocations. Quote, Bitcoin provides a vehicle to supplement our state's portfolio and preserve public funds from losing value. Merritt stated arguing that through the legislation, the Ohio state government could harness the power of Bitcoin, and that's in quotes, harness the power of Bitcoin to strengthen its state's finances. The Ohio representative said he anticipates the incoming Trump administration will pursue a national Bitcoin reserve program, referencing referencing a proposal by senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. The bill's introduction comes as the current legislative session nears its end.
Marin expects the legislation to serve as a framework for lawmakers to address in the upcoming session in 2025. Ohio joins a growing list of other United States state representatives putting forth similar legislation. In November of 2024, rep Mike Cabell or Cable. Yeah. Cabell, c a b e l l. I think it's Cabell. Yeah. Cabell, introduced the Pennsylvania Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Act. Shortly after, Texas followed suit. Representative Giovanni filed house bill 1598 on December 12th aiming to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve funded through donations. The bill seeks to authorize state agencies to accept Bitcoin for payments, including taxes and fees. And in October, a separate tax bill was proposed by Ohio State Senator Niraj Antani to accept Bitcoin and other crypto as payment.
And if I remember correctly, Ohio this is not Ohio's first rodeo when it comes to Bitcoin because if I remember correctly, they allowed the state pass something that allowed people to pay their state in state income tax or other other things with bitcoin but nobody used it everything was you know we're always so early that it it's sort of like hit or miss as to whether or not we're going to time this shit right but so now Ohio's definitely on deck so we got 3 out of the out of the 50 states of the United States that have shit on the table recommending in legal language a Bitcoin strategic reserve.
But Arthur Hayes sees trouble on the horizon. Helen Partz, Cointelegraph. Trump's inauguration may trigger a crypto sell off according to Arthur Hayes. And if you don't remember, he was the CEO of BitMex. Cryptocurrency market commentators and observers have predicted positive market trends associated with president-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in January of this coming year, but BitMex cofounder, Arthur Hayes, has got a different perspective. Hayes cautioned against the high expectations of quick crypto policy changes promised by Trump, highlighting a gap between market anticipation and the realities of policy implementation.
In his Trump Truth blog post published yesterday, December 17th, Hayes said that his investment fund, Maelstrom, plans to trim some positions early to buy later at lower prices in the first half of twenty twenty five. Good luck to you, sir. I I I mean, this is the this is the classic mistake of I'm going to time the market. And just because you're Arthur Hayes and have been in the game since the very beginning days of Bitcoin does not mean that somehow or another you're not immune to the stupidity of trying to time a market.
Anyway, unlike many forecasters, Hayes doubts that the US and other countries will start creating national Bitcoin reserves anytime soon. The market believes that Trump and his people can immediately achieve economic and political miracles, Hayes wrote, highlighting a gap between crypto investor expectations and, quote, no politically acceptable solutions or at least available quickly anyway. The enactment of any crypto policy changes would likely take significantly more time than the market might expect. Hayes predicted, adding, quote, the market will instantly wake up to the reality that Trump has, at best, 1 year to enact any policy changes on or around January 20th.
This realization will lead to a vicious sell off in crypto and other Trump 2.0 equity trades. Hayes forecasted a harrowing dump around Trump's inauguration day before crypto enters a crack up boom phase later in 2025. As Hayes expects the market to experience a sharp drop around Trump's inauguration in January, maelstrom will clear some positions expecting to buy at lower prices. Yes. You've already said that. Here's a direct quote from Hayes. Maelstrom will be lightening up on certain positions in advance hoping to rebuy some core positions at lower prices sometime during the first half of twenty twenty five.
The businessman justified the sale by saying that long term investors are underinvested for the rest of the bull market. While many hodlers most often end up selling too early. That's interesting. Long term investors are underinvested for the rest of the bull market is a sentence that I really can't pull that apart without thinking, you know, about what he's trying to say there. Under invested for the rest of the bull market. I think the only thing that he could possibly be saying here is that there's 2 kinds of people in the market right now. There well, there's one kind of person with 2 different hemispheres of thinking.
There's people that own Bitcoin. Okay. There you go. Now there's 2 types of Bitcoin owner. Those that don't have enough Bitcoin and hodlers who most often end up selling too early. Well, gee, Arthur, it sounds like you might be thinking about, you know, selling some positions in Bitcoin as well. Maybe you're too early. I mean, honestly, the hubris here has got is a little concerning, but, quote, we are committed to admitting defeat if the bull market steamrolls through January 20th, licking our wounds, and getting back up, on the bowl, I will be buying dips and rips, end quote.
Cryptocurrency markets have entered a massive rally since Trump's victory in the presidential election in early November with Bitcoin surging past a 100 k for the first time in history by early December. Yeah. Well, of course, we all saw that. Several analysts have predicted that Trump's crypto policy changes will likely bring Bitcoin and decentralized finance into the mainstream. Singapore based crypto platform, Matrixport, said that it expects Bitcoin to have a strong start in 2025, adding that many investors are likely to look back and wonder why they didn't accumulate more. Well, welcome to Bitcoin, dude. Still, Hayes isn't alone in expecting some bearish market action in early 2025.
According to Protos, there has been a market rumor that MicroStrategy may enter a blackout period in January 2025, which would halt the issuing of shares and convertible bonds to purchase more BTC. Well, if they clear their $42,000,000,000 that they want to issue in equities and debt so they can have cash on hand to buy bitcoin, If they exhaust that, then why wouldn't they? Because that's the plan. I mean, he I think, you know, I think he's shooting for, like, having, you know, a 1,000,000 Bitcoin, I think, is is the goal. And if he gets a 1,000,000 Bitcoin, he's not gonna be doing Bitcoin any more favors by buying more, honestly.
But we will have to see. And in the meantime, let's run the numbers. CNBC Futures and Commodities, but first, building permits numbers have come in. The projected was 1,430,000,000. The previous was 1,410,000. The actual 1 and a half 1000000 permits have been issued, which means that, well, people will look at that and say the economy is recovering. And now now you can be almost guaranteed that the Fed, whenever they announce how many rate cuts that they're going to give in 2025, I think that the percentage that they were that they were going to say 3 instead of 4 has jumped from maybe a 60% chance to damn near a 95% chance.
Okay. We still don't know what the Fed interest rate decision is. That comes in about an hour from now. And right now, it is just flipped over to 10:0:5 Pacific Standard Time. Now let's do futures and commodities. I got oil. West Texas Intermediate is up a point to $70.75. Brent Norsee is up over a half point to 73.62. Natural gas, this time not going in the opposite direction, 2.6% to the upside to $3.39, probably because winter is getting getting kinda chilly. Gasoline is up 0.58 percent to a buck 95 a gallon, but most shiny metal rocks are doing poorly today. Gold is down by a third of a point. Silver is down 0.7%.
Platinum down over a point. Copper is the only one in the green. It's up by 1 third of a point, and palladium is down 0.87%. Ag is mostly in the red today on their futures. Biggest winner today is gonna be chocolate. 6, almost 7 full points to the upside today. I don't know what's going on with chocolate, but the biggest loser is soybeans, 2 a half percent to the downside, and live cattle down 0.86%, lean hogs up a third, feeder cattle down one half. The Dow is actually in the green today for, breaking its 9 day losing streak, 0.41% to the upside. S and P is up a 5th of a point. Nasdaq is moving sideways as is the S and P Mini. Likely, they're waiting to see what, fed the Fed chairman actually says.
Okay. Let's see. What's Bitcoin doing? Well, we're gonna find out. $104,760, that is a $2,070,000,000,000 market cap. We can now purchase, only 39.6 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 bitcoin of which there are 19,797,689.11 of. Average fees per block are low, 0.09 BTC taken in fees on average on a per block basis. There are 109 blocks carrying 281,000 unconfirmed transactions, waiting to clear at high priority rates of 12 satoshis per vbyte. Low priorities get you in at 10. 785.8 exahashes per second is the hash rate on a 1 week rolling average, so the security of Bitcoin is confirmed. From the 10 AM reversal, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin, and I got Seabroch with a line of fours, 4,444 sats.
Thank you, sir. Stay humble and stack sats. No. Thank you. That's a that's a nice little bump there. Tico with a 1,000 sats says, nanya, join us in Costa Rica. Next Bitcoin Freedom Festival by Bitcoin Jungle is now a music festival with Bitcoin workshops and talks. Awake Earth Festival. That's the name. It will be on February 20th through 24th 2025 at the AWAKE Center in Uvita, Costa Rica, and then he gives a wake earth festival dot com. Awake earth earth festival dot com. We've combined forces with awake for earth festival to bring a different type of event to the Bitcoin conference space. We're combining a music festival with Bitcoin workshops and talks.
February 20th through 23rd, there will be some Bitcoin activities, but will primarily focus on music with internationally recognized artists, healing workshops and ceremonies, educational talks, and engaging conversations. February 24th is a full on Bitcoin day where the entire venue will be focused on Bitcoin. Our goal with this partnership is to attract new faces into the Bitcoin space and bring people that would normally not attend a traditional Bitcoin conference. It's more beautiful than ever. We know it's different. We know you're going to love it. Don't miss out.
Join us at a one of a kind Bitcoin event in one of the most beautiful event venues on earth. That's awake earth festival.com. [email protected]. Again, February 20th through 24th 2025. And if you need that again, if for whatever reason, all this stuff is gonna be in the show notes or you can just get a hold of me on Noster and I will make sure that I get you in touch with Tico. That's at Tico, t I c o. God's death. 537. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Wartime with 333 says, Tone Vaz Mods listens to your show now. Interesting how it all come full circle.
Tone Vaz mods. Tone Vaz's mods. I don't know what that is. What tone vases mods? Moderators? Hey, it would be cool if you did. Pies with a 100 says, thank you, sir. No, thank you. And I think that's it. Yep. That's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use. First half of the show, I gave you some pretty glum news. Let's brighten it up a little bit. Atlas 21 is has this one written, Bitcoin ETFs surpass gold, a milestone in the US market. Yep. It happened. It really did. It actually happened. Bitcoin ETFs encompassing spot, futures, and leveraged products have overtaken gold ETFs in terms of assets under management, reaching $129,250,000,000 compared to $128,000,000,000 for gold funds. This milestone, confirmed by Vettel Lunde of k 33 Research and Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, marks a shift in the institutional investment landscape. However, spot gold ETFs still hold more assets than spot Bitcoin ETFs with a 125,000,000,000 in gold compared to a 121,000,000,000 in Bitcoin.
That's probably going to flip here pretty damn quick. The rise of spot Bitcoin ETFs launched a mere 11 months ago, contrast sharply with the 2 decade history of gold ETFs highlighting the growing interest of institutional investors into Bitcoin. The 12 spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US now collectively hold over 1,100,000 BTC. Bitcoin ETFs now represent 1% of all US ETFs with BlackRock's Ibit standing out as the most successful ETF launch since 2014, surpassing approximately 2,850 competing products. Holy shit, man. With daily inflows of half a $1,000,000,000, analysts predict that by 2025, spot Bitcoin ETFs will definitely or definitively surpass gold ETFs, cementing Bitcoin's position as a premier institutional investment asset.
So, yep, the flippening, it happened, not the way the ether ether heads wanted, but it happened. Alright. So, again, continuing on with the brighter, with the brighter look at at what's going on with Bitcoin. China may be on the verge of ending its Bitcoin ban according to Vivek Sin out of Bitcoin Magazine. Look, I think it's only a matter of time before China pulls a complete 180 on its Bitcoin ban. Yeah. They outlawed trading and mining back in 2021, but, honestly, a lot has changed since then, especially this year. Bitcoin's momentum globally has been insane. We've seen US president elect Donald Trump calling to stockpile Bitcoin, Bitcoin ETFs get approved, Fed chair Jerome Powell calling Bitcoin digital gold, Larry Fink flipping pro Bitcoin, and even Putin saying nice things about it.
With all of this happening, I wouldn't be shocked if China has already started quietly stacking sats. Here's why I think that. China doesn't like to announce what it's doing beforehand. It's just not how they operate. Former Binance CEO CZ talked about this recently at the Bitcoin MENA or the MENA conference in Abu Dhabi, saying that while the US loves to make big public statements about upcoming policies, Asian countries prefer to move in silence. You know, that's kinda his that's kind of a historical way that they that they work. And let's not forget, China doesn't have elections. They don't need to win over public opinions like Trump does. If they're making moves with Bitcoin, they'll do it quietly, and we'll find out when they're ready to make it official. Now with Trump's big push for Bitcoin and crypto, I can't see China sitting on the sidelines for too long.
This is turning into a global race. And if China wants to stay competitive, they can't afford to miss the Bitcoin train. And my gut tells me they're already planning to unban Bitcoin and crypto, and I wouldn't be surprised if it happens as early as the Q1 of 2020 5, especially if Trump takes office. That is an interesting sentence. If Trump takes office, what are you suggesting, dude? Another big hint, Hong Kong. China has a long history of using Hong Kong as a sandbox to test things before rolling them out on the mainland. And this year, we've seen Hong Kong make major moves, approving bitcoin and crypto ETFs and greenlighting more crypto exchanges.
Let's be real. This isn't a coincidence. They are planning to eliminate crypto taxes for institutions. I think China is watching carefully, and these are early steps towards a broader shift. In my opinion, and it is opinion only, China has likely been quietly accumulating Bitcoin all along. When the time is right, they'll unban it. And not just to compete with the US, but to lead. Watch this space. I think it's going to happen much sooner than most people expect. Well, that's my question to my audience. What do you think would happen if China just said we're unbanning Bitcoin?
All of it. Let's say, let's go the full mine. You can mine in China. You can use it as money in China. You can own it in China. You can, I don't know, talk about it on social media in China, and you can pay your bills to the Communist Party because you said something mean about Xi on Twitter? As of fine. Right? I'm just saying. Let's say all 9 yards, Bitcoin completely unbanned in China, and that is a an official statement from the Chinese Communist Party across all major newswires globally. What do you think happens to Bitcoin? And I'm not if you want to speculate on price, fine. If you want to say what it might mean geopolitically, I'm I'm all about that too. I'm talking about anything anything at all. What do you think happens to Bitcoin if China says, you know what? We were wrong. We're unbending it.
Let me know in a boostagram or let me know on on Noster, and I will try to get your opinions up on the show. Okay. So this is from the block and Danny Park is writing it. The US has imposed sanctions on North Korea's crypto laundering network. I'm not sure how many more sanctions we can actually put on North Korea, but the US Treasury Department has sanctioned 2 individuals oh, okay. Individuals. 2 individuals and one entity for laundering cryptocurrency for the North Korean Democratic People's Republic of Korea. 2 Chinese nationals helped the crypto money laundering as part of a more extensive illicit network headed by a sanctioned DPRK banking representative named Sim Hyun Somp, according to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control.
Li and Zhang, these two Chinese guys, worked at a front company in the United Arab Emirates named Green Alpine Trading, which allegedly served as a core component of the money laundering network. The company has been designated as a sanctioned organization. The DPRK continues to use agents and proxies to access the international financial system to conduct illicit financial activities, including fraudulent IT work. Oh, fraudulent IT work, really? Digital asset heist and money laundering in support of its unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs. Wow. Weapons of mass destruction. Are we still are we still swimming in the shallow end of the pool here, boys and girls? What the whatever, dude.
North Korea backed hacker groups, including Lazarus, are accused of orchestrating some of the largest hacks in crypto such as the $600,000,000 hack of the Ronin Ethereum side chain in 20 22. Like, I could care less what happens to Ethereum. And then they go on. So, anyway, yeah, United States is still fumbling around with North Korea. I honestly I don't think that they're as dangerous as everybody seems to think that North Korea is. I mean, yeah, sure. They got a missile program. I've never seen them actually land a missile anywhere close to, you know, to Japan. They always seem to fall into the sea of Japan. I I think we're giving them entirely too much credit. Doesn't mean not to watch them, but dude, I yeah. I think it's honestly it's a probably a waste of time for OFAC to be piddling around with these idiots. Okay.
Now into into our back into our world, AlbiHub version 1.12.0 improved relay connectivity and more. AlbiHub is an open source hub for setting up and or controlling your lightning node and wallet from various applications that support noster wallet connect. Quote, in this release, AlbiHub has improved relay connectivity, increased support for paying Bolt 11 invoices and LND channel modifications. There have also been some minor ui improvements according to the project so what's new pay zero amount invoices migrate to vss fire channel open and closure events in lnd improve alb account connection card, add environment variables to customize LDK listening addresses. So this seems to be not a major upgrade, but a minor upgrade that may, may increase throughput in the albihub network and lightning its connection to lightning network. And albihub is my go to, lightning wallet because it is self custodial now.
And if you want to use albihub and you don't have your own lightning node you can do that but it does cost you money and I while I agree that that blows chunks they got to pay their bills So this is a good time to learn how to spin up a bitcoin full node because you have to have one as the back end of a lightning node and learn how to use lightning on your own node. It's honestly guys it is not that hard. It's really interesting and once you become comfortable with it you start going why the hell was I so concerned about the loss of wallet of satoshi. I wasn't because I was already able to make payments through my own lightning node and I was able to do it from remote locations. I could be in, like, freaking Cambodia and as long as I've got internet connection somehow I can access my node or I can access my node via a lightning wallet on my phone that I'm using to pay somebody.
And on honest and it just works. Right? I was always able to do that. But with light with AlbieHub, it's become really really simple to just chain any nostril app that I want to be able to read my wallet and draw from it if I want it to and I don't I don't have to let it do that. Please please please stop like there was somebody yesterday and I think it was like somebody that was pretty high ups suggested that NWC or nostril wallet connect stopped working. This is not true. Nostril wallet connect while it was built by the guys at Albi Hub, is not the Albi custodial wallet, which is the thing that stopped working, and they did that on purpose. It wasn't an accident. It didn't fall. It wasn't like Lord Vader came and chopped it in half with a fucking saber or something like that. No. They did it because they don't want the custodial and regulatory headaches that come along with cust custodying somebody else's satoshis.
But they had already built nostril wallet connect, which allows nostril applications to connect to different and variable, lightning wallets. Most applicably, the Albie hub system. Right? So if you don't understand what any of that means, get a hold of me on Nostra. Just ask me. It's like, could you explain this better and and ask me what it is that you don't understand about Nostra Wallet Connect, AlbieHub, and why Albie the Albie guys decided to get rid of their custodial wallet. And I'll I'll do my best to explain it. It doesn't mean that I'll be all that effective, but I will do my best to explain it.
And No Strudel version 0.42.0 has been released and it includes something about apple sauce. And let's find out more directly from the source. Hazard 149. HZRD 149. He's the head honcho over there at Nostrudel, which is a Nostra client and is one of my go to desktop clients. It is sort of like an army switchblade. It's got all kinds of neat stuff on it and it seems that he's made it a bit faster. Let's find out more. Finally, another version of Nostril. I keep telling myself I'm gonna do more frequent releases, but then, you know, well time keeps getting away from me. This release comes with a bunch of new features and most importantly a lot of cleanup.
So here's the features. OLAS Media Post. You can now view a simple feed of media posts made on olas. App. That's Pablo F7Z's latest nostril client which is sort of like an Instagram looking client. Anyway, you can now view the simple feed of media post made on Olas in the app and comment on them using nip 22 comments. There is a simple GIF picker. This was mostly a test, but now there is a simple gift picker and barely functional search that is based on k1063 events. I don't know what those are. If you want a better search and to help populate the Nostra gift library, you can use gift buddy.lolcreatedbylemon.
And guys, gift buddy.lolbylemon is slick. It's fast and it's dead simple. You just like you you get you you just go to giftbuddy.lolgifbdy.lol. Use the search bar and say, I don't know, laser eyed Leota. And then when a whole bunch of laser eyed Leota GIFs come up you just hit you just tap 1 on your phone and it just automatically copies it. And on like a web browser or like on a desktop if you click it it just copies the address for that GIF and you just paste it into whatever the hell it is you want to paste it. It works like a charm and it's it's just beautiful. Thank you, Lemon, for making that. There is a new support view in Nostrudel.
The tiny support button at the bottom of the side menu now hides a zap leaderboard that shows top supporters and any custom messages that they leave. Now there are favorite DVM feeds, you know, data vending machines. You can now favorite a DVM feed in the discover view. There are tools under notes. This is now a simpler tools menu under notes and threads. There is searching local cache relays. If you're using Nostr Relay Tray, the search will now use it by default for searching, which should make it a little faster and more reliable. And there are some other small features and bug fixes. Now here's a statement on this thing called applesauce. And I'm still not understanding it fully, but I'm gonna give it to you since, you know, well, I owe it to you. Over the past few months, I've been doing tons of cleanup on the core of Nostrudel and extracting it out into a friendly Nostr SDK called Applesauce. Okay. So, Nostr SDK named Applesauce.
It's very much a work in progress, but the idea with these libraries is to help myself and maybe others build the user interface layer of Nostra apps and eventually make Nostradle just another app that is built with applesauce. If you're a developer and another Nostra SDK sounds interesting to you, you can check it out, at the getting started documents and that would be at hazard hzrd149. Github.ioforward/ Applesauceforward/introductionsforward/gettingstarted.html. Okay. So, all this, all of these links that I gave you today that I'm either reading from news stories or I'm looking at this note that's over on Noster just now, All of this is gonna be in the show notes. If you had any question about what the hell was going on, look in the show notes. If I didn't, for whatever reason, I didn't include something that you wanna know about, just do just get a hold of me. You can even you can even email me at [email protected] if you want.
Just, you know, put something in the, oh, in the regarding line that says something like, or referencing r e. Whatever r e stands for that says something like a question about, show 1011 or something like that. Do that, and I'll I'll I'll see if I can get back to you. So that is that was it. That was the that was the entire docket for today's show. Again, I'm going to be on Once Bitten podcast tomorrow, with Daniel Prince. I appreciate the, invite. I have literally no freaking idea what we're gonna talk about and, honestly, I kinda like it that way. So look for me there, and I'll 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 Predictions and Trump's Impact
