Join me today for Episode 999 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- $2 Billion in U.S. Gov BTC Moved! World Freaks Out
- Microsoft Execs See Mike's Slideshow
- Don't Debank me, Bro
- Mike Buys $1.5 Billion More of the Corn
- Brazil to Ban Stablecoin Withdrawals
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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 10:23 AM Pacific Standard Time. It is the 2nd day of the last month of 2024, and this is the very last episode of Bitcoin and, well, at least the palindrome episodes for the triple digits.
This is episode number 999. So 1,000 is the next show. And then right after that, it'll be 1,001, which will be the first palindrome of this new era of 4 digit episode numbers. It's kind of kind of amazing. And I got a chance to talk about a little bit a little bit of that on Pleb Chain Radio episode number 89, entitled Podcasting is Low Time Preference with None You Bidness, and that would be me, also known as David Bennett. I'm generally speaking my handle on most any well, any other social media, Noster and other related things, is always none you business. It's just something that I picked a long time ago.
It doesn't really make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but then again, whose handle does make a lot of sense? Anyway, so I I got to sit down with, Avi Burra and QW from, Pleb Chain Radio on Friday, and we had a nice, I don't know, about about an hour and a half long chat about podcasting and, you know, hitting almost about to hit, you know, a 1000 episodes and some of the other things. And it was a I I really enjoyed hanging out with those guys for that hour and a half. It's I've been on there I've been on the show once before, and it's always a really good time. If you're ever asked to go on Pleb Chain Radio, just just say yes because you're gonna you're going to have a good time because I I certainly did.
Okay. So all hell is breaking loose. If you haven't noticed by now, you you will hear it you will hear in a moment. We're gonna start started off with the morning's biggest breaking news. The United States government has moved almost 20,000 bitcoin from its United States government wallet to some unknown address. And everybody's freaking out. Everybody is absolutely losing their mind. So let's talk about this. These are Silk Road coins. Sorry about that. I had to make a little pause there. So I was saying these are Silk Road coins. And they've been sitting in this United States government wallet for oh, I don't know. If I go over here to intel.arkom.com, that's arkm.com, you know, forward slash explorer, forward slash entity, forward slash usg, and USG stands for US government.
We can take a look at the United States government's Bitcoin wallet. And again, that is intel.arkim.com. And if I go and I look at the total or the token balance history and I go to all, this wallet had, like, I don't know, 0 at one point or another, they had in that wallet back in 2014, there was a 144,000 Bitcoin in this particular wallet. And then they sold it all. The United States Marshals Service sold it all. And then and then we hit a zero balance or damn close to a very, very close to a zero balance, and it stayed, oh, I don't know, let's think around somewhere around, 2017, September, so it looks like or August.
It looks like there was about 2,000 coins in that wallet, and then it dropped back down to, like, 560 because they sold those. And then they started ramping up and added 70,000 coins to that wallet in 2020. That would be November, of 2020. And then they ramped up to a 167,000 coins in what looks to be February of 2022. And then they topped out at 236,000 Bitcoin in the year 2023. That was, like, between, you know, January and, like, the Q1 of of 2023. And then I wanna remind everybody that last August, August 13, 2024, there was 218,000 Bitcoin in this wallet.
And then all of a sudden, it went down to 208,000. So they moved 10,000 Bitcoin somewhere. We don't know where. And everybody lost their mind. Oh my god, the United States government's gonna sell it all. It's just it it was pathetic. Because nobody really knows where I mean, we we surmise that they might have gone to Coinbase, because Coinbase is the United States government's well, they've they've said that Coinbase is the United States government's preferred, custodian. When when the United States government isn't custodying the coins themselves, they're going to, I guess, send it to to Coinbase. And we don't know. Maybe the this 10,000 coin back in, like, last August, maybe that was a deal. But this was just, guys, this was just at the end of this summer, just a few short months ago, and everybody lost their mind. And now nobody's talking about it.
Nobody's talking about those coins. Nobody knows where they went. I I presume they went to Coinbase. I don't know why. We have no confirmation that the United States government sold a single one of these things. And nobody's talking about this 10,000 Bitcoin move that happened in August, and they haven't been talking about it since 2 weeks after it happened. And, of course, it crashed the price because everybody lost their freaking mind. Okay. So fast forward to this morning when the United States government, out of the same wallet, moved roughly around I think it's like 19,200 Bitcoin came out of that wallet and went to yet another unknown address. We don't know if it's Coinbase.
We don't know what the hell is going on with it. And I have seen some of the stupidest things over on dead birds sight of people responding to was Bitcoin Magazine made of I don't know. They they took a snapshot of what I'm looking at this ark this intel.arkum dotcom of the US government's wallet, took a snapshot of it, and said, hey, man. The United States government moved, you know, all these coins and whatnot. And the replies to this tweet is it's it's heart wrenching to see just how stupid some of these people are. Half of them are saying that it's going that they're giving it to Hunter Biden because I he he got pardoned over, like, last night. Right? Of all crimes, potential and actually committed over the last 11 years.
But okay. So they're apparently, we're just giving the Bitcoin to to Hunter. Now the other people are saying, well, oh, will god sell it all because the United States government is getting out of Bitcoin? Well, this is exactly what was being said last August when they moved 10,000 coins. And yet, all of a sudden, everybody lost interest in those coins and are now all freaked out about these new coins. It's a little sickening. Now I want to read to you this note on Noster from, Rockefeller. He says, rumor of 19,000 Bitcoin sale moves the market down by $3,000.
Meanwhile, the announced 55,000 Bitcoin buy doesn't move the market at all, and he's talking about Michael Saylor. Because Michael Saylor is back in the news today. I've got two things about Michael Saylor. But what I want what I really want to illustrate here is that Rockefeller kinda gets this. The rumor is more powerful than the actual news. You know? I mean, that's it. This is not an issue with Bitcoin. This is not an issue. The security model of Bitcoin hasn't changed. The way that we interact with Bitcoin hasn't changed. Nothing about Bitcoin itself has changed at all. The only thing that ever changes is perception.
And that ends up being one of the Achilles heels to everything, though. It's not just Bitcoin. Everything has the Achilles he Achilles heel, whether you're just a private citizen and somebody spreading a rumor about you or if you're a celebrity and a bunch of people on TikTok are spreading a rumor about you or if you're gold or if you're silver or if you're Nvidia stock, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what it is. It's the perception. And generally speaking, the global population's attention span is so low that it's the perception of the day, not even the week, maybe a couple of days, not a month, you know, not the year.
We don't think in terms like that anymore. It's everybody reacting to the news of the day. So 19,000, you know, Bitcoin get moved, and we assume that the United States is going to sell it again, and we have no proof that they sold the last 10,000 that they moved in August. And yet, we do know that Michael Saylor bought 55,000 bitcoin, because that we're gonna get into that here in a second. And yet that doesn't move that doesn't move the price at all. It's bizarre, but this this is you're dealing with humanity. And every time you deal with humanity, you're dealing with people. So Michael Saylor dealt with some people.
He dealt with some people, apparently, I guess, over the weekend. I thought this wasn't going to happen for a for a couple more weeks, but it seems that Michael Saylor has done told Microsoft that its value could soar $5,000,000,000,000 with Bitcoin. Jesse Coughlin, Cointelegraph, micro strategy chair and Bitcoin Bull, Michael Saylor, told Microsoft's board of directors that the firm could add almost 5 trillion, that's trillion with a t, dollars to its market cap if it were to go all in on Bitcoin. Saylor made the point during a pitch to Microsoft's board on why the tech giant should buy Bitcoin, whipping through 44 slides in a little over 3 minutes. I've got to pause.
I don't honestly understand how you're going to show 44 slides in 3 minutes to a room full of suits and expect to get anything out of it. I I there's no way. You you cannot capture that kind of information on a PowerPoint presentation in an hour, much less 3 minutes. Now going for an hour is gonna be way, way, way too long. But 44 slides in 3 minutes, I'm sorry. I just I I don't know what Mike's thinking. But then again, he's a billionaire. I'm not. So maybe maybe he knows something I don't about presentations. But 44 slides in 3 minutes? I don't know, man. But, quote, Microsoft can't afford to miss the tech next technology wave, and Bitcoin is that wave, Saylor said to open his pitch in a video shared on December 1st, which urged Microsoft to convert its cash flows, dividend payouts, stock buybacks, and debt into the cryptocurrency, adding, quote, if you do that, you'll add 100 of dollars to the stock price.
You can create 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of enterprise value. And you can strip away risk from your shareholders. In the pitch deck, Saylor claimed bitcoin could add up to $584 to Microsoft's share price over the next decade if it were to use all of its treasury and all of its debt and all of its cash flows, dividend payouts, and share buyback money to buy Bitcoin, assuming one BTC would be worth $1,700,000 by the end of 2034. The seller claimed the strategy could add $4,900,000,000,000 to Microsoft's value if if it went all in on Bitcoin.
The company is currently the 3rd most valuable in the world with its 3 point $18,000,000,000,000 market cap behind Apple Incorporated and Nvidia Corporation. MicroStrategy shares have surged $465.5 wait. No. No. No. I hate it when they do this. Cointelegraph, come on, guys. You've got dollar sign 465.5 and then the percent sign. So what is it? I'm going to go with percent. 465.5 percent so far in 2024 alongside the value of its Bitcoin holdings. Its shares reached a peak of $421 on November 22nd, which broke past the long held all time high it hit just before the dot com.com bubble popped in early 2000, Saylor claimed that public and political support for Bitcoin is surging. And there is a crypto renaissance noting pro crypto statements made by incoming United States president Donald Trump and Bitcoin investment products launched by notable Wall Street firms. He's talking about BlackRock and Fidelity.
Saylor made the case that Microsoft should invest $100,000,000,000 into Bitcoin every year, claiming it makes a lot more sense to buy Bitcoin than to buy your own stock back or to hold Bitcoin rather than holding bonds. What if you could buy a $100,000,000,000 company growing faster than Microsoft for one times revenue? What if you kept doing it every single year? It's time for Microsoft to evaluate its bitcoin strategic options, Saylor said, quote, so do the right thing for the world and adopt bitcoin. I don't know.
I watched a little bit of the 3 minute presentation. And if you ever listen to Michael Saylor talk, you know that dude can go on forever and ever and ever. So I think that it was probably I think it's interesting that he was able to contain himself into a 3 minute pitch. But, again, I go back to 2 things. The messaging that he's using is all in on one thing. That's probably never going to fly with a group of people like Microsoft. And 2, 44 slides in 3 minutes? I'm surprised you didn't cause an epileptic seizure with these guys, Mike. I mean, you're flashing shit in front of them so fast.
It's like, I don't know, watching an anime. And if you have you've got any kind of, you know, septal deviation between left and right hemispheres, you're probably gonna end up in a grand mal seizure. But hey. Again, he's the billionaire. I'm not a billionaire. So, therefore, I'm just gonna assume that, you know, Mike knows what he's doing. But I can't help but wonder, some of this language just seems I don't know. It's not that it can't do it. It's like think about your audience. Who's your audience? Your audience is Microsoft, you know, board of directors.
And you're talking about, so let's see. What what does he say here? You can create 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of enterprise value. You could add almost $5,000,000,000,000 to your market cap. Wow. I mean, honestly, in some of these slides that he's was showing, kept showing the price of or the gains that Microsoft stock was making since they've been, you know, buying Bitcoin. And then a whole, like, Nvidia's, you know, stock price and, you know, how much it's gained in by percentage wise and Microsoft and Apple and a couple of other ones. And the the micro strategy, you know, bar of how much it's gained in percent is just dwarfing all these other companies.
And I'm, like, going, I I it's just I don't know. I don't I honestly, I'm going to say that I don't think it was going I don't think it was effective. Now we'll have to find out. Maybe maybe it was effective. Who knows? But all in, use all of your debt. Use all of your, like, stock buyback money. Use all of your cash flows. You use all of your cash on hand. And then then just go ahead and start striking some debt and and buy more. I I don't think that that's going to work. But, hey, again, he's a billionaire. I'm not. And that billionaire just bought another $1,500,000,000 worth of Bitcoin.
MicroStrategy is now holding 4 100,000 Bitcoin. Matt DeSalvo from Decrypt, software company MicroStrategy today, this is today, announced yet another massive Bitcoin buy. The 4th such purchase in as many weeks. The newly dubbed Bitcoin Development Company said Monday that it bought approximately 15,400 Bitcoin for $1,500,000,000 between November 25th December 1st. It snapped up the orange coin at an average price of $95,976. And, let's see. Yeah. He's down by about $100 a coin on all those purchases right now, but that'll change. They now hold 402,100 Bitcoin.
And at today's price, that's about $39,000,000,000 in the leading cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is now trading for 97,000. Strike that. Make that 95,840. The formerly sleepy software company now securitizes Bitcoin by buying the asset and allowing investors to buy its Nasdaq listed shares to get exposure to the cryptocurrency. And the cofounder and executive chairman, Michael Saylor, came up with the idea back in 2020. The company in August of that year spent $250,000,000 on the asset. Saylor claims to have found the ultimate way to store value. The tech entrepreneur argues that Bitcoin is the best bet if companies want to get returns for their shareholders as the digital coin is scarce and appreciates more than any other investments each year.
Quote, whoever gets the most bitcoin wins. Oh, god. I just I I don't agree with this man here. I don't think that that's it, but whatever. And he may have a point. MicroStrategy stock was trading for less than $15 a share. Read that again. MicroStrategy stock was trading for less than $15 a share before the company started buying Bitcoin. And today, it's trading for $389 a share and surged to a new all time high price last month. The company has beat most other firms on the s and p five 100. MicroStrategy has repeatedly bought Bitcoin since 2020, but this year, it accelerated its buys as the price of Bitcoin surged.
The firm recently said that it will raise $42,000,000,000 in additional funding to continue buying Bitcoin as it has started to do recently. And if you know, this is actually called the 21/21 plan. It's $21,000,000,000 worth of equity raises to buy bitcoin or using equity to buy bitcoin, and then $21,000,000,000 worth of fixed income instruments that they're creating to also fund those bitcoin purchases. It's not that he's wrong. I'm not saying that. So please don't misunderstand me. I mean, the guy's the guy's brilliant. Let's let's just give it to him. But I wonder if it's possible that hubris might be taking over a little bit in Michael Saylor's life. I just I I I have to wonder that. Okay. Let's move on.
Colin Crossman has a new piece out of Bitcoin Magazine titled Debanked, the Financial Suppression of Bitcoin Businesses Must End. In yet another troubling manifestation of choke point 2.0, a Wyoming company was summarily de banked in early November, 2024 by Mercury, a banking platform operated with Evolve Bank. After years of seamless operations and exemplary service, Mercury abruptly terminated the account without clear cause. The excuse? A vague nod to internal factors that remain as opaque as the regulatory pressures likely behind them. Let's be clear. The company's banking activity was uncontroversial.
The only potential offense is that the company accepts a sizable portion of its customer payments in Bitcoin. Aside from monthly wires from Kraken, its transactions include rent, utility payments, hardware store purchases, and subcontractor invoices. The termination couldn't couldn't couldn't have had anything to do with risky behavior or financial misconduct. Instead, the closure is emblematic of a systemic effort to hobble Bitcoin businesses by exploiting the centralized banking choke point regulators have turned into tools of suppression, and this is choke point 2.0 in action.
Regulators have found new ways to suppress industries that they disfavor, this time targeting Bitcoin miners and businesses. Instead of legislative debate or due process, unelected bureaucrats leverage their oversight of banks to nudge them into derisking clients that engage in entirely legal activities. The company was simply collateral damage in the campaign to isolate Bitcoin from the traditional financial system. It's a chilling echo of operation choke point 1.0 where federal regulators illegally pressured banks to cut off services to lawful but disfavored industries such as firearms dealers and payday lenders. That campaign ended in disgrace when the FDIC was forced to settle a lawsuit in 2019.
The settlement affirmed what should have been obvious. Weaponizing the financial system against legal businesses is unconstitutional. Regulators know this, and yet here we are again. Debanking isn't just an inconvenience. For businesses, it's existential. Operating without It also stifles innovation, a dangerous precedent for a country founded on economic freedoms. Moreover, this practice undermines the core tenet of fairness in financial services. The American banking system isn't a private fiefdom. It operates under public charters and with public trust. And its gatekeepers should not act as arbiters of political or ideological purity.
The harm extends beyond Bitcoin. If regulators can throttle this industry, what stops them from targeting others? What happens when innovation, dissent, or inconvenient truths are deemed too risky for the comfort of entrenched powers? This is about more than Bitcoin. It's about the integrity of the financial system and the preservation of free markets. The new congress and the new Trump administration must seize this moment to hold the architects of choke point 2.0 accountable. This isn't a partisan issue. It's a constitutional one.
Regulators acting as de facto lawmakers imposing policies that would never survive public scrutiny must be reined in. So number 1, investigations into regulatory overreach. Congress must launch comprehensive investigations into the agencies pressuring banks to sever ties with Bitcoin businesses. Who issued these directives? Under what authority? The American people deserve answers and the offending parties deserve consequences. Another one is personal accountability for regulators. Bureaucrats who abuse their power should not be shielded by the anonymity of the regulatory machine, Those responsible for weaponizing the financial system against lawful businesses must be named, shamed, and removed from their positions permanently, lose any security clearances they may have, and potentially lose their government pensions and retirement retirement benefits. We need the restoration of due process.
Any decisions to restrict banking access should require clear, codified standards and a transparent appeals process. No more shadow rules. If a business is to be debanked, the reasons should be public, defensible, clearly articulated and defined, grounded in law, and appealable. Another one here is legislation to protect financial access. Where Congress should pass laws prohibiting banks from discriminating against lawful industries based on or ideological reasons. The free market thrives on neutrality. It withers under bias. And then we have decentralization of financial systems.
Bitcoin exists as a hedge against precisely this kind of overreach. Policymakers should embrace and encourage its growth, not fight it. America can't afford to fall behind in the global race for financial innovation. Much of the above could be addressed through section 10 of the SAFER Banking Act, which directly limits undue regulatory influence over banking services. Specifically, it prohibits federal banking agencies from pressuring financial institutions to terminate relationships with lawful businesses, including those in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency industries, based on reputational risks or political motivations.
This provision reinforces the principle that decisions about financial services should rely on risk based analysis of individual accounts rather than blanket biases against entire industries. By codifying such protections, the Safer Banking Act would promote fairness and transparency in financial services, ensuring that regulators adhere to their duties of impartial oversight while respecting the rights of businesses operating legally under state or federal law. In addition to legislative solutions, the presence of even one bank with the willingness and capability to resist undue regulatory pressure could dramatically reshape the financial landscape for Bitcoin business.
Caitlin Long's Custodia Bank, based in Wyoming, exemplifies this potential custodial has consistently demonstrated its commitment to operating within the law while challenging the overreach of federal regulators as seen in its lawsuit against the Federal Reserve. A bank with this level of resolve, direct access to the Federal Reserve itself, and a proven track record of standing up to regulators will provide a lifeline for Bitcoin businesses seeking reliable financial services. And by fostering an ecosystem where lawful businesses can thrive without fear of arbitrary debanking, Custodia Bank offers a template for how other institutions might follow suit, ensuring that innovation and economic freedom remain protected.
Taken together, the SAFER Banking Act and the perseverance of institutions like Custodia Bank represent 2 critical fronts in the fight against financial discrimination, While the SAFER Act provides a legislative framework to curtail regulatory overreach and protect lawful businesses from debanking, it has faced significant resistance, having been introduced multiple times in congress only to be repeatedly blocked. Meanwhile, Custodias Banks' or Custodia Banks' struggle underscores the severity of institutional hostility.
The Federal Reserve's refusal to grant Custodia Bank access to the banking system force the bank to file a federal lawsuit just to claim its rightful place in the financial ecosystem. These challenges highlight the entrenched opposition to reform, but they also emphasize the urgent need for a multi pronged strategy, legislative, judicial, and entrepreneurial to ensure fair and impartial access to banking services for all lawful businesses. Bitcoin isn't just money. It's an idea. An idea that money and power belong to the people and not the state. This is why we're here.
This is why Bitcoin exists. The legacy financial system is crumbling under its own corruption, and every act of suppression only underscores the need for decentralized alternatives. To be clear, I don't fully blame Mercury and Evolve for this. They're likely being forced into it by their regulators. Indeed, due to the Orwellian Bank Secrecy Act, the banks aren't allowed to disclose the reason for these matters to the affected customers. Banks like Mercury and any others who have willingly cooperated with choke point 2.0 should be subject to congressional subpoenas to explain themselves and also name and shame the regulators who co opted them.
The future of Bitcoin and America's role as a leader in innovation depends on exposing and dismantling choke point 2.0 and holding all those who participated in it accountable. Alright. Again, that is Colin Crossman writing this one for Bitcoin Magazine. I can't agree more. I think the SAFER Banking Act should definitely be on the table. It keeps getting rejected. But what I'm seeing here is when he was talking about Custodia Bank and their fight with the Federal Reserve, it's very much in a way, it's very much like Michael Saylor trying to talk to Microsoft and the rest of, honestly, the rest of corporations, not just in America, but around the world, saying, look.
This old way of doing things is not gonna cut is not gonna tread water anymore. And the only real way out is with Bitcoin. Okay? So he's talking to corporate America, you know, the corporate world, let's just say. And then we have Caitlin Long, who's saying at the federal level, talking to state and federal regulators when it comes to the financial institutions, that the way that they've been doing shit for years years years is also not going to tread water anymore. So we've got 2 main we honestly, we've got 2 main people that are working both sides of the fence. We got Mike over there working corporate world, and we got Caitlin Long over there working the financial legacy financial regulatory landscape world.
And, honestly, they're they're both coming to the table with the exact same thing. They're both coming with Bitcoin. It's going to be interesting to see how all this shakes out. Okay. So I was going to read this so this thing about the so called $100,000 sell wall for Bitcoin. I'm just gonna say a couple of words about it because I was thinking thinking maybe that this was why we had that price depression earlier this morning because, yeah, we lost, like, you know, $3,000 in in a few minutes, but it wasn't. It was about this it was all about the United States government simply moving a coin around. And honestly, I I I I'm gonna say it.
I think it's wrong for governments to manipulate markets. I I'm I'm calling them out right now. Not that it's gonna matter. I mean, it's not like, you know, Biden's listening to the podcast or anything like that. But this is market manipulation, which is illegal. It's also immoral. It's clearly unethical, but it's definitely illegal. You you get in trouble. If I were to do this, if I were to start doing things like on this kind of, you know, this kind of scale where I just put in induce fear into the market with no explanation whatsoever as to why I moved 20,000 Bitcoin around and everybody was looking at my wallet and I knew that, that's market manipulation.
It just is. So I'm going to we're just going to understand that there is always going to be a $100,000 sell wall, which is simply means every time you get close to $100,000, there's basically preprogrammed sell instructions from all kinds of probably on Kraken and Coinbase and not BitMex, more than thinking of, Bitfinex. Any of the other Bitcoin exchanges that are out there, They all these all these guys that hold Bitcoin have, like, just said, when you hit a $100,000, sell a 100 Bitcoin. And it they don't even I mean, it's like set it and forget it. They don't even have to worry about it. So that's what we mean when we're talking about the $100,000 sell wall. Why? Because it's a psychological number.
$100,000 is just as psychological as me going from 999 episodes of Bitcoin and into 4 digits where we I start talking about this will be episode 1,000 of Bitcoin and when I do it tomorrow. It is a psychological not not as much of a barrier for me when I'm talking about Bitcoin and it is a step. It is a huge step. It is a step function. A $100,000 Bitcoin means that we are no longer going to be in 5 digits. We're going to be in 6 digits. And there's a whole shitload of people that just seem to not understand the value proposition of Bitcoin. However, I guarantee you that over half of the people that have set their coins to sell at a 100,000 are buying them back when that shit dips to 95, 94, 91. I think we hit I think we hit sub $91,000 a few days ago.
I guarantee you over half of those guys there is just trading for them, which as wrecked bot on Nostr will let you know, if you don't know exactly what you're doing, you're gonna get wrecked. Let's run the numbers. West Texas Intermediate was up earlier today. Now it's down again. Point 18% of the downside, brings it to $67.88 a barrel. Brent Norsee, likewise, down a 5th of a point to 7168. And this time, natural gas is following suit. It's almost 5 points off to $3.20 per 1,000, while gasoline is up 2 thirds of a point to a buck 91 a gallon. So what happened? Well, OPEC is going to delay their meeting, and that didn't help, that didn't help the price of oil.
But on the other side of that equation was the fact that there seems to be no such thing as a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel because that shit fell apart real quick. I think I don't even think that thing got off the ground. But at first, price of oil was actually up a good, like, a good 3 points, earlier this morning, but has since fallen and now it looks like it's gonna be set to rise again. But gold is down 3 quarters of a point to $26.60.30. Silver is down 0.64%. Platinum is down, about 0.43%. Copper is down 0.19%.
Palladium is essentially moving sideways. Ag, biggest loser today. God. Coffee is off over 7 points to the downside. Biggest winner is lumber, 1.1% to the upside. Live cattle is down 0.42%, but lean hogs, 1.74% to the upside, and feeder cattle down 0.88%. Oh, by the way, I did do that talk at, the cat the Whitman County Cattlemen Association's annual dinner. So it was about a 150 some odd ranchers and or members of ranching families. And it went it went well. I was able to, you know, fully articulate just how bad the situation with the King Ranch is. And I'm pretty sure I heard a couple of gasps in the audience when I was lining out, essentially the suspension of the 5th amendment for 1 of the, subpoenaed people. I won't get into that here.
That was, the episode entitled Ranch Wars, colon King Ranch. So if you wanna go listen to that, please do and you'll you'll feel just how bad it is. But I had to talk for about 10 minutes, and was almost barely able to cover everything that really needed to be talked about. So but it went well. And for those of you that actually wrote back messages that you want wanted me to read to the ranchers while I was there, I was able to read 3 of them. Alright? And, it's not that I didn't, you know, didn't wanna read the rest of them. It was just I was coming up on time. But your messages thanking the ranchers.
They did they did, get get there. So just just understand. The Dow was down a quarter of a point. S and P is up a 5th of a point. Nasdaq is up just over a full point, but the S and P mini is down point 14%. Meanwhile, we're at $95,560 per coin. That is a $1,89,000,000,000 market cap, And we can get 36.3 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 bitcoin, of which there are 19,790,261.70 of. And fees are high, quite high right now. Almost a quarter of a bitcoin on average on a per block basis, and there are 98 blocks. Wow.
Carrying 264,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear high priority rates, 11 satoshis per satoshis per v byte. Low priorities, you're gonna be able to do a transaction at 9 satoshis per v byte. And what what is mining doing right now? One week rolling average is at 729.1 exahashes per second. Alright. From sell the news, and I'm probably gonna I'm probably actually going to name this episode of, Bitcoin and sell the news again because it seems appropriate. The boostograms came in user 115-56842 with 10,000 sat actually, 9,999.
Again, bringing the news that we can use, I have used knowledge from podcast pioneers like yourself, oh, to make life changing decisions. And Europod is a prime source of said knowledge. Well, that's very nice. That run on sentence was for you read your reading pleasure, god candle tomorrow, to celebrate your adding a 0 to your odometer. Cheers. No. Thank you. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. Ben Brasel with 5 1,000 says, thanks, David. This is my new favorite daily podcast. Oh, wow. Okay. Gained 1. Graham with a 1,000. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Bitgus with a 1,000 boost, baby. Wartime with 333 says, I love ranchers and small farmers. It's a crime.
What's being forced upon them? Thank you for continuing to fight. We might be about to get some wins soon. I hope so. I really do. We're gonna need them. Wartime with another 333 SATs with, clapping hand emoji. The bird, morning drive. Listen, stack SATs, the sailor doesn't get them. Let's see who else is up here. Pies to Pleb with thank you, sir, no thank you, and God's death with thank you, sir, no thank you, and that's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use. I got 2 in a row about Marathon Digital.
The first one is about the Bitcoin that they just bought. And this is out of decrypt. Who's writing this son of a bitch anyway? Stacy Elliott is writing this one. It it is titled Bitcoin miner marathon by $618,000,000 worth of Bitcoin. They did, in fact, pay that in cash to acquire approximately 6,484 Bitcoin, the company said in a brand spanking new SEC filing. And the Florida company appears to have bought near the top, paying an average of $95,352 per BTC, including fees and expenses. At the time of writing, Bitcoin prices settled just below 95,000.
We are as I as I told you, we're back up above 95,000, sitting at 95,455, just so you know. The company shareholders seem to like the sound of that news because as of Monday afternoon, during EU trading hours, Mara shares were 1.9% higher than they were when trading closed on Friday afternoon. And Marathon stock, which trades on the Nasdaq, closed at $26.85 on Friday after losing 2%, but the Bitcoin buying news seems to have all but erased that dip. So that's what they just bought. Right? Now they're not done, and neither are we, because I got this other one here from The Block, and it's written by James Hunt.
Merid or Marathon Digital is proposing a $700,000,000 convertible senior note offering to buy yet more Bitcoin. Okay? So they've already done this once. I I told you that they were gonna do the offering like last week and now they've actually bought the Bitcoin because they've done the deal. They've gotten the money and they've spent the money and they bought the Bitcoin and that's done. Now we're on to greener fields. Right? So let's get into this one, see what they're thinking. Mara Holdings has announced yet another proposed private offering of $700,000,000, 0 coupon convertible senior notes to repurchase existing notes and acquire more Bitcoin.
Subject to market conditions and other factors, the notes due 2031 will be offered to, oh, qualified institutional investors only. Yeah. You plebs. Yep. Suck it. With Mara expected to grant initial purchasers an option to acquire up to an additional $105,000,000 in aggregate principal amounts on the notes according to a press release, I suspect that this will be oversubscribed. The notes will be unsecured, senior obligations of Mara, and are not expected to bear any interest. The notes will be converted into cash or Mara common stock or a combination of both at Mara's discretion.
The company expects to use up to $50,000,000 of the net proceeds from the sale to repurchase a portion of its existing convertible notes which were due 2026 with the remainder used to acquire additional Bitcoin and for general corporate purposes. Mara announced a similar convertible note offering on November 18th, subsequently acquiring 6,474 Bitcoin, which was worth about $615,000,000 at current prices. And those Bitcoin are reflected in the firm's Bitcoin production and mining operation updates for November, also released on Monday. In addition to the recently acquired Bitcoin, Mara also mined 907 Bitcoin worth $86,200,000 in the month of November alone.
And that's up 26% on a month over month basis and a 6.6% share of all Bitcoin miner rewards. The firm has mined 8,563 Bitcoin and acquired 12,965 Bitcoin so far this year alone, taking its total Bitcoin holdings to 35,000 Bitcoin worth about $3,300,000,000 That's the largest of any public Bitcoin miner according to Bitcoin treasuries. Quote, November was a record breaking month for Mara and our mining operations achieving unprecedented levels of production driven by the successful deployment of additional miners and enhanced operational efficiency, Mara chairman and CEO, Fred Thiel, said. I want to remind everybody here about Mara Digital.
They blacklist wallet addresses. They do so at the behest of governments, especially the United States government. They are not good actors in the field, and I'm saddened by the fact that they have this much Bitcoin, that they are able to actually mine as much Bitcoin as they do. I mean, honestly, they they mined 907 Bitcoin in the month of November. 6.6% share of all Bitcoin miner rewards were given to a mining company that will blacklist your ass, it's pathetic that their mining pool has that their mining pool and their own mining operations in general is able to be, you know, have that much reach.
It's kinda sickening. But if, you know, hey, Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining mining is for enemies and I can't do a damn thing about it. So let's go down south. Let's take a little trip to Brazil where Helen Parts from Cointelegraph tells us that Brazil is proposing to ban stablecoin withdrawals to self custody wallets. Because, you know, you plebs suck. You shouldn't be able to do anything without the blessing of a government from somewhere. Brazil is considering a ban on stablecoin withdrawals to self custody wallets coinciding with the Brazilian real hitting all time lows against the United States dollar.
On November 29th, Banco Central do Brasil, the Central Bank of Brazil, issued a proposal to ban transfers on stablecoins like Tether to self custodial wallets like MetaMask. The proposal is part of a draft regulation and is subject to public consultation up until February 28, 2025, quote, the provider of virtual asset services is prohibited from transferring virtual assets denominated in foreign currency to a self custodial portfolio. Yeah. This is another this is what this is essentially, what do they call it? Capital flight.
But instead of actually leaving your borders, the people that are committing capital flight are actually still residents of your own country. And it's getting so bad in Brazil that they're actually proposing to ban this sort of activity altogether. Anyway, the proposed restrictions align with the Brazilian government's push to increase oversight of the foreign exchange market and regulate Brazilian capital abroad. Even though it's not really abroad, it's actually right there in Brazil. They're just tired of having their money used as toilet paper. According to the BCB's consultation document, the initiative aims to amend existing 2022 resolutions concerning virtual asset service providers in the foreign exchange market. The Brazilian Central Bank specifically proposed to expand the scope of the foreign exchange market with activities including crypto payments, sales, custody, and transactions denominated in a foreign currency.
Under the proposal, VASPs would be required to provide BCB with information including client verification, transfer values, and other details. So why self custody? While cryptocurrency and stable coin transactions are subject to know your customer checks and monitoring by centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, self custodial wallets do not require any user information to deposit or withdraw the funds. By definition, self custodial or non custodial wallets provide a method of interacting with cryptocurrency that is associated with full accountability and ownership of owned assets.
According to some self custody advocates, there are a few ways for regulators to limit the usage of self custodial wallets, but there is no way to ban such wallets completely. And that's important to understand. But the Brazilian real is collapsing nonetheless. The BCB's proposal to limit stablecoin transactions in Brazil comes amid the Brazilian real significantly dropping in value against the US dollar. Since January 1st, I assume from last you know, from this year, the Brazilian real has lost at least 23% of value against the dollar, with the dollar reaching an all time high of 6.09 real on November 29th according to TradingView data.
Many of the cryptocurrency community have linked Brazil's proposal to restrict stablecoin transactions to self custody wallets. They're closing the exits, this is a quote, while BRL is collapsing, Area Bitcoin cofounder Carol Souza said on Twitter. As the real dropped against the dollar, the local community has increasingly hedged the local currency's price depreciation by stacking stablecoins like USDT. According to Chainalysis, Brazil was the 2nd largest market globally in terms of stablecoin transactions this year, with the country's stablecoin transaction volumes accounting for 59.8 percent of its entire cryptocurrency market. Holy shit.
Brazil saw $90,000,000,000 in crypto inflows in the past year, lagging behind Argentina by just $1,000,000,000. So the real is collapsing to the point that people are just saying, fuck it. Let's get out of this thing and just but, no, they're not gonna go to Bitcoin, and they're not they're not using altcoins. This is what I was been trying to tell you over the last couple of weeks. Is you really for for those people that think that this altcoin thing isn't going to happen again, it's gonna happen a little bit again. But what you're really gonna be looking for and what you're really gonna see is an explosion of stablecoins.
And most of them are gonna just be fly by night operations that that all all it's going to be is altcoins wrapped in a different color Christmas paper. That's all it is. They're gonna say it's stablecoins, and people are going to go, oh, well, because it's a stablecoin, clearly, it's going to be backed by the United States dollar. No. That's not what's going to happen. What's going to happen is you're gonna buy a stable coin that nobody accepts. And by the time you figure that shit out, it's gonna be too freaking late. And they will have soldier shit into Bitcoin and be living on a beach somewhere possibly in Brazil. Who knows? But the stablecoin explosion that's fixing to happen, you don't wanna have any part of it. If you have to use stablecoins, then for I I don't know why you do, but if for whatever reason you do, stick with Tether or God forbid the circle stable coin, which is called USDC.
Tether is USDT. Either one of those is just fine. Okay? I mean, if you have to use them, that's what I'm saying. This new stuff that's gonna come that's gonna start barreling down the alleyway before you can shake your head, you don't wanna have anything to do with it. I personally don't have anything to do with any stable coins for any reason whatsoever because I don't need them. I'm not saying that I won't ever need them, I'm just saying that I can't in, you know, the next few couple of years. I don't see why I do need them. I've never used them. I I don't like them. I wish they didn't exist. But again, I got no say so. All you can do is protect yourself.
Right? So if you have to use a stable coin, use either Tether or circles like the USDC or the USDT. USDT is Tether's thing and USDC is circle stable coin. And just just use that, okay, if you have to use this shit. Now on to Africa, Bitcoin in Africa. Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame supports development with an investment in recursive capital. This is out of Atlas 21. On November 29th, Recursive Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in Bitcoin investments across Africa, the African continent, announced the completion of its first capital raising round. Fund 1, I think is what it's named.
Among the main backers are Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block Peter L. Bridger, Jr, former Goldman Sachs partner and chairman of Fortress Investment Group and Jeff Booth, author of the Price of Tomorrow. The fund led by Nigerian CEO, Abu Abu Bakr Nurkali Khalil? You know me. I can't pronounce these names. We'll focus on 3 strategic areas. 1, companies developing commercial products such as wallets or exchanges, and then mining operations with a focus on renewable energy. And then 3rd, innovative technologies like lightning network investments ranging from 50,000 to $100,000 per portfolio company aiming to build a robust Bitcoin ecosystem on the continent of Africa.
Nir Khalil, who's also serves as interim CEO of The Bitcoin Trust, a nonprofit organization founded by Jay z and Jack Dorsey that supports African Bitcoin developers stated, quote, the focus of Fund 1 is to lay the foundations for a thriving Bitcoin ecosystem in Africa that will lead the world in innovation, growth, and impact. Recursive Capital has already invested in several ventures including Bitnob, Betty, and Synota, s y n o t a. And next year, the company plans to launch Recursive Labs, a mentorship initiative for its portfolio companies.
So there you go, Jack Dorsey laying some cash back down on the table, investing in Africa, and he's been interested in Africa for as long as I've known about Jack Dorsey. So he's putting his money where his mouth is. Good for you, Jack. I'm I'm I'm proud of you, pal. Alright. So that is it for episode 999, the last palindrome episode of the 3 digit era of the and podcast, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin and, and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 10:23 AM Pacific Standard Time. It is the 2nd day of the last month of 2024, and this is the very last episode of Bitcoin and, well, at least the palindrome episodes for the triple digits.
This is episode number 999. So 1,000 is the next show. And then right after that, it'll be 1,001, which will be the first palindrome of this new era of 4 digit episode numbers. It's kind of kind of amazing. And I got a chance to talk about a little bit a little bit of that on Pleb Chain Radio episode number 89, entitled Podcasting is Low Time Preference with None You Bidness, and that would be me, also known as David Bennett. I'm generally speaking my handle on most any well, any other social media, Noster and other related things, is always none you business. It's just something that I picked a long time ago.
It doesn't really make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but then again, whose handle does make a lot of sense? Anyway, so I I got to sit down with, Avi Burra and QW from, Pleb Chain Radio on Friday, and we had a nice, I don't know, about about an hour and a half long chat about podcasting and, you know, hitting almost about to hit, you know, a 1000 episodes and some of the other things. And it was a I I really enjoyed hanging out with those guys for that hour and a half. It's I've been on there I've been on the show once before, and it's always a really good time. If you're ever asked to go on Pleb Chain Radio, just just say yes because you're gonna you're going to have a good time because I I certainly did.
Okay. So all hell is breaking loose. If you haven't noticed by now, you you will hear it you will hear in a moment. We're gonna start started off with the morning's biggest breaking news. The United States government has moved almost 20,000 bitcoin from its United States government wallet to some unknown address. And everybody's freaking out. Everybody is absolutely losing their mind. So let's talk about this. These are Silk Road coins. Sorry about that. I had to make a little pause there. So I was saying these are Silk Road coins. And they've been sitting in this United States government wallet for oh, I don't know. If I go over here to intel.arkom.com, that's arkm.com, you know, forward slash explorer, forward slash entity, forward slash usg, and USG stands for US government.
We can take a look at the United States government's Bitcoin wallet. And again, that is intel.arkim.com. And if I go and I look at the total or the token balance history and I go to all, this wallet had, like, I don't know, 0 at one point or another, they had in that wallet back in 2014, there was a 144,000 Bitcoin in this particular wallet. And then they sold it all. The United States Marshals Service sold it all. And then and then we hit a zero balance or damn close to a very, very close to a zero balance, and it stayed, oh, I don't know, let's think around somewhere around, 2017, September, so it looks like or August.
It looks like there was about 2,000 coins in that wallet, and then it dropped back down to, like, 560 because they sold those. And then they started ramping up and added 70,000 coins to that wallet in 2020. That would be November, of 2020. And then they ramped up to a 167,000 coins in what looks to be February of 2022. And then they topped out at 236,000 Bitcoin in the year 2023. That was, like, between, you know, January and, like, the Q1 of of 2023. And then I wanna remind everybody that last August, August 13, 2024, there was 218,000 Bitcoin in this wallet.
And then all of a sudden, it went down to 208,000. So they moved 10,000 Bitcoin somewhere. We don't know where. And everybody lost their mind. Oh my god, the United States government's gonna sell it all. It's just it it was pathetic. Because nobody really knows where I mean, we we surmise that they might have gone to Coinbase, because Coinbase is the United States government's well, they've they've said that Coinbase is the United States government's preferred, custodian. When when the United States government isn't custodying the coins themselves, they're going to, I guess, send it to to Coinbase. And we don't know. Maybe the this 10,000 coin back in, like, last August, maybe that was a deal. But this was just, guys, this was just at the end of this summer, just a few short months ago, and everybody lost their mind. And now nobody's talking about it.
Nobody's talking about those coins. Nobody knows where they went. I I presume they went to Coinbase. I don't know why. We have no confirmation that the United States government sold a single one of these things. And nobody's talking about this 10,000 Bitcoin move that happened in August, and they haven't been talking about it since 2 weeks after it happened. And, of course, it crashed the price because everybody lost their freaking mind. Okay. So fast forward to this morning when the United States government, out of the same wallet, moved roughly around I think it's like 19,200 Bitcoin came out of that wallet and went to yet another unknown address. We don't know if it's Coinbase.
We don't know what the hell is going on with it. And I have seen some of the stupidest things over on dead birds sight of people responding to was Bitcoin Magazine made of I don't know. They they took a snapshot of what I'm looking at this ark this intel.arkum dotcom of the US government's wallet, took a snapshot of it, and said, hey, man. The United States government moved, you know, all these coins and whatnot. And the replies to this tweet is it's it's heart wrenching to see just how stupid some of these people are. Half of them are saying that it's going that they're giving it to Hunter Biden because I he he got pardoned over, like, last night. Right? Of all crimes, potential and actually committed over the last 11 years.
But okay. So they're apparently, we're just giving the Bitcoin to to Hunter. Now the other people are saying, well, oh, will god sell it all because the United States government is getting out of Bitcoin? Well, this is exactly what was being said last August when they moved 10,000 coins. And yet, all of a sudden, everybody lost interest in those coins and are now all freaked out about these new coins. It's a little sickening. Now I want to read to you this note on Noster from, Rockefeller. He says, rumor of 19,000 Bitcoin sale moves the market down by $3,000.
Meanwhile, the announced 55,000 Bitcoin buy doesn't move the market at all, and he's talking about Michael Saylor. Because Michael Saylor is back in the news today. I've got two things about Michael Saylor. But what I want what I really want to illustrate here is that Rockefeller kinda gets this. The rumor is more powerful than the actual news. You know? I mean, that's it. This is not an issue with Bitcoin. This is not an issue. The security model of Bitcoin hasn't changed. The way that we interact with Bitcoin hasn't changed. Nothing about Bitcoin itself has changed at all. The only thing that ever changes is perception.
And that ends up being one of the Achilles heels to everything, though. It's not just Bitcoin. Everything has the Achilles he Achilles heel, whether you're just a private citizen and somebody spreading a rumor about you or if you're a celebrity and a bunch of people on TikTok are spreading a rumor about you or if you're gold or if you're silver or if you're Nvidia stock, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what it is. It's the perception. And generally speaking, the global population's attention span is so low that it's the perception of the day, not even the week, maybe a couple of days, not a month, you know, not the year.
We don't think in terms like that anymore. It's everybody reacting to the news of the day. So 19,000, you know, Bitcoin get moved, and we assume that the United States is going to sell it again, and we have no proof that they sold the last 10,000 that they moved in August. And yet, we do know that Michael Saylor bought 55,000 bitcoin, because that we're gonna get into that here in a second. And yet that doesn't move that doesn't move the price at all. It's bizarre, but this this is you're dealing with humanity. And every time you deal with humanity, you're dealing with people. So Michael Saylor dealt with some people.
He dealt with some people, apparently, I guess, over the weekend. I thought this wasn't going to happen for a for a couple more weeks, but it seems that Michael Saylor has done told Microsoft that its value could soar $5,000,000,000,000 with Bitcoin. Jesse Coughlin, Cointelegraph, micro strategy chair and Bitcoin Bull, Michael Saylor, told Microsoft's board of directors that the firm could add almost 5 trillion, that's trillion with a t, dollars to its market cap if it were to go all in on Bitcoin. Saylor made the point during a pitch to Microsoft's board on why the tech giant should buy Bitcoin, whipping through 44 slides in a little over 3 minutes. I've got to pause.
I don't honestly understand how you're going to show 44 slides in 3 minutes to a room full of suits and expect to get anything out of it. I I there's no way. You you cannot capture that kind of information on a PowerPoint presentation in an hour, much less 3 minutes. Now going for an hour is gonna be way, way, way too long. But 44 slides in 3 minutes, I'm sorry. I just I I don't know what Mike's thinking. But then again, he's a billionaire. I'm not. So maybe maybe he knows something I don't about presentations. But 44 slides in 3 minutes? I don't know, man. But, quote, Microsoft can't afford to miss the tech next technology wave, and Bitcoin is that wave, Saylor said to open his pitch in a video shared on December 1st, which urged Microsoft to convert its cash flows, dividend payouts, stock buybacks, and debt into the cryptocurrency, adding, quote, if you do that, you'll add 100 of dollars to the stock price.
You can create 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of enterprise value. And you can strip away risk from your shareholders. In the pitch deck, Saylor claimed bitcoin could add up to $584 to Microsoft's share price over the next decade if it were to use all of its treasury and all of its debt and all of its cash flows, dividend payouts, and share buyback money to buy Bitcoin, assuming one BTC would be worth $1,700,000 by the end of 2034. The seller claimed the strategy could add $4,900,000,000,000 to Microsoft's value if if it went all in on Bitcoin.
The company is currently the 3rd most valuable in the world with its 3 point $18,000,000,000,000 market cap behind Apple Incorporated and Nvidia Corporation. MicroStrategy shares have surged $465.5 wait. No. No. No. I hate it when they do this. Cointelegraph, come on, guys. You've got dollar sign 465.5 and then the percent sign. So what is it? I'm going to go with percent. 465.5 percent so far in 2024 alongside the value of its Bitcoin holdings. Its shares reached a peak of $421 on November 22nd, which broke past the long held all time high it hit just before the dot com.com bubble popped in early 2000, Saylor claimed that public and political support for Bitcoin is surging. And there is a crypto renaissance noting pro crypto statements made by incoming United States president Donald Trump and Bitcoin investment products launched by notable Wall Street firms. He's talking about BlackRock and Fidelity.
Saylor made the case that Microsoft should invest $100,000,000,000 into Bitcoin every year, claiming it makes a lot more sense to buy Bitcoin than to buy your own stock back or to hold Bitcoin rather than holding bonds. What if you could buy a $100,000,000,000 company growing faster than Microsoft for one times revenue? What if you kept doing it every single year? It's time for Microsoft to evaluate its bitcoin strategic options, Saylor said, quote, so do the right thing for the world and adopt bitcoin. I don't know.
I watched a little bit of the 3 minute presentation. And if you ever listen to Michael Saylor talk, you know that dude can go on forever and ever and ever. So I think that it was probably I think it's interesting that he was able to contain himself into a 3 minute pitch. But, again, I go back to 2 things. The messaging that he's using is all in on one thing. That's probably never going to fly with a group of people like Microsoft. And 2, 44 slides in 3 minutes? I'm surprised you didn't cause an epileptic seizure with these guys, Mike. I mean, you're flashing shit in front of them so fast.
It's like, I don't know, watching an anime. And if you have you've got any kind of, you know, septal deviation between left and right hemispheres, you're probably gonna end up in a grand mal seizure. But hey. Again, he's the billionaire. I'm not a billionaire. So, therefore, I'm just gonna assume that, you know, Mike knows what he's doing. But I can't help but wonder, some of this language just seems I don't know. It's not that it can't do it. It's like think about your audience. Who's your audience? Your audience is Microsoft, you know, board of directors.
And you're talking about, so let's see. What what does he say here? You can create 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of enterprise value. You could add almost $5,000,000,000,000 to your market cap. Wow. I mean, honestly, in some of these slides that he's was showing, kept showing the price of or the gains that Microsoft stock was making since they've been, you know, buying Bitcoin. And then a whole, like, Nvidia's, you know, stock price and, you know, how much it's gained in by percentage wise and Microsoft and Apple and a couple of other ones. And the the micro strategy, you know, bar of how much it's gained in percent is just dwarfing all these other companies.
And I'm, like, going, I I it's just I don't know. I don't I honestly, I'm going to say that I don't think it was going I don't think it was effective. Now we'll have to find out. Maybe maybe it was effective. Who knows? But all in, use all of your debt. Use all of your, like, stock buyback money. Use all of your cash flows. You use all of your cash on hand. And then then just go ahead and start striking some debt and and buy more. I I don't think that that's going to work. But, hey, again, he's a billionaire. I'm not. And that billionaire just bought another $1,500,000,000 worth of Bitcoin.
MicroStrategy is now holding 4 100,000 Bitcoin. Matt DeSalvo from Decrypt, software company MicroStrategy today, this is today, announced yet another massive Bitcoin buy. The 4th such purchase in as many weeks. The newly dubbed Bitcoin Development Company said Monday that it bought approximately 15,400 Bitcoin for $1,500,000,000 between November 25th December 1st. It snapped up the orange coin at an average price of $95,976. And, let's see. Yeah. He's down by about $100 a coin on all those purchases right now, but that'll change. They now hold 402,100 Bitcoin.
And at today's price, that's about $39,000,000,000 in the leading cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is now trading for 97,000. Strike that. Make that 95,840. The formerly sleepy software company now securitizes Bitcoin by buying the asset and allowing investors to buy its Nasdaq listed shares to get exposure to the cryptocurrency. And the cofounder and executive chairman, Michael Saylor, came up with the idea back in 2020. The company in August of that year spent $250,000,000 on the asset. Saylor claims to have found the ultimate way to store value. The tech entrepreneur argues that Bitcoin is the best bet if companies want to get returns for their shareholders as the digital coin is scarce and appreciates more than any other investments each year.
Quote, whoever gets the most bitcoin wins. Oh, god. I just I I don't agree with this man here. I don't think that that's it, but whatever. And he may have a point. MicroStrategy stock was trading for less than $15 a share. Read that again. MicroStrategy stock was trading for less than $15 a share before the company started buying Bitcoin. And today, it's trading for $389 a share and surged to a new all time high price last month. The company has beat most other firms on the s and p five 100. MicroStrategy has repeatedly bought Bitcoin since 2020, but this year, it accelerated its buys as the price of Bitcoin surged.
The firm recently said that it will raise $42,000,000,000 in additional funding to continue buying Bitcoin as it has started to do recently. And if you know, this is actually called the 21/21 plan. It's $21,000,000,000 worth of equity raises to buy bitcoin or using equity to buy bitcoin, and then $21,000,000,000 worth of fixed income instruments that they're creating to also fund those bitcoin purchases. It's not that he's wrong. I'm not saying that. So please don't misunderstand me. I mean, the guy's the guy's brilliant. Let's let's just give it to him. But I wonder if it's possible that hubris might be taking over a little bit in Michael Saylor's life. I just I I I have to wonder that. Okay. Let's move on.
Colin Crossman has a new piece out of Bitcoin Magazine titled Debanked, the Financial Suppression of Bitcoin Businesses Must End. In yet another troubling manifestation of choke point 2.0, a Wyoming company was summarily de banked in early November, 2024 by Mercury, a banking platform operated with Evolve Bank. After years of seamless operations and exemplary service, Mercury abruptly terminated the account without clear cause. The excuse? A vague nod to internal factors that remain as opaque as the regulatory pressures likely behind them. Let's be clear. The company's banking activity was uncontroversial.
The only potential offense is that the company accepts a sizable portion of its customer payments in Bitcoin. Aside from monthly wires from Kraken, its transactions include rent, utility payments, hardware store purchases, and subcontractor invoices. The termination couldn't couldn't couldn't have had anything to do with risky behavior or financial misconduct. Instead, the closure is emblematic of a systemic effort to hobble Bitcoin businesses by exploiting the centralized banking choke point regulators have turned into tools of suppression, and this is choke point 2.0 in action.
Regulators have found new ways to suppress industries that they disfavor, this time targeting Bitcoin miners and businesses. Instead of legislative debate or due process, unelected bureaucrats leverage their oversight of banks to nudge them into derisking clients that engage in entirely legal activities. The company was simply collateral damage in the campaign to isolate Bitcoin from the traditional financial system. It's a chilling echo of operation choke point 1.0 where federal regulators illegally pressured banks to cut off services to lawful but disfavored industries such as firearms dealers and payday lenders. That campaign ended in disgrace when the FDIC was forced to settle a lawsuit in 2019.
The settlement affirmed what should have been obvious. Weaponizing the financial system against legal businesses is unconstitutional. Regulators know this, and yet here we are again. Debanking isn't just an inconvenience. For businesses, it's existential. Operating without It also stifles innovation, a dangerous precedent for a country founded on economic freedoms. Moreover, this practice undermines the core tenet of fairness in financial services. The American banking system isn't a private fiefdom. It operates under public charters and with public trust. And its gatekeepers should not act as arbiters of political or ideological purity.
The harm extends beyond Bitcoin. If regulators can throttle this industry, what stops them from targeting others? What happens when innovation, dissent, or inconvenient truths are deemed too risky for the comfort of entrenched powers? This is about more than Bitcoin. It's about the integrity of the financial system and the preservation of free markets. The new congress and the new Trump administration must seize this moment to hold the architects of choke point 2.0 accountable. This isn't a partisan issue. It's a constitutional one.
Regulators acting as de facto lawmakers imposing policies that would never survive public scrutiny must be reined in. So number 1, investigations into regulatory overreach. Congress must launch comprehensive investigations into the agencies pressuring banks to sever ties with Bitcoin businesses. Who issued these directives? Under what authority? The American people deserve answers and the offending parties deserve consequences. Another one is personal accountability for regulators. Bureaucrats who abuse their power should not be shielded by the anonymity of the regulatory machine, Those responsible for weaponizing the financial system against lawful businesses must be named, shamed, and removed from their positions permanently, lose any security clearances they may have, and potentially lose their government pensions and retirement retirement benefits. We need the restoration of due process.
Any decisions to restrict banking access should require clear, codified standards and a transparent appeals process. No more shadow rules. If a business is to be debanked, the reasons should be public, defensible, clearly articulated and defined, grounded in law, and appealable. Another one here is legislation to protect financial access. Where Congress should pass laws prohibiting banks from discriminating against lawful industries based on or ideological reasons. The free market thrives on neutrality. It withers under bias. And then we have decentralization of financial systems.
Bitcoin exists as a hedge against precisely this kind of overreach. Policymakers should embrace and encourage its growth, not fight it. America can't afford to fall behind in the global race for financial innovation. Much of the above could be addressed through section 10 of the SAFER Banking Act, which directly limits undue regulatory influence over banking services. Specifically, it prohibits federal banking agencies from pressuring financial institutions to terminate relationships with lawful businesses, including those in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency industries, based on reputational risks or political motivations.
This provision reinforces the principle that decisions about financial services should rely on risk based analysis of individual accounts rather than blanket biases against entire industries. By codifying such protections, the Safer Banking Act would promote fairness and transparency in financial services, ensuring that regulators adhere to their duties of impartial oversight while respecting the rights of businesses operating legally under state or federal law. In addition to legislative solutions, the presence of even one bank with the willingness and capability to resist undue regulatory pressure could dramatically reshape the financial landscape for Bitcoin business.
Caitlin Long's Custodia Bank, based in Wyoming, exemplifies this potential custodial has consistently demonstrated its commitment to operating within the law while challenging the overreach of federal regulators as seen in its lawsuit against the Federal Reserve. A bank with this level of resolve, direct access to the Federal Reserve itself, and a proven track record of standing up to regulators will provide a lifeline for Bitcoin businesses seeking reliable financial services. And by fostering an ecosystem where lawful businesses can thrive without fear of arbitrary debanking, Custodia Bank offers a template for how other institutions might follow suit, ensuring that innovation and economic freedom remain protected.
Taken together, the SAFER Banking Act and the perseverance of institutions like Custodia Bank represent 2 critical fronts in the fight against financial discrimination, While the SAFER Act provides a legislative framework to curtail regulatory overreach and protect lawful businesses from debanking, it has faced significant resistance, having been introduced multiple times in congress only to be repeatedly blocked. Meanwhile, Custodias Banks' or Custodia Banks' struggle underscores the severity of institutional hostility.
The Federal Reserve's refusal to grant Custodia Bank access to the banking system force the bank to file a federal lawsuit just to claim its rightful place in the financial ecosystem. These challenges highlight the entrenched opposition to reform, but they also emphasize the urgent need for a multi pronged strategy, legislative, judicial, and entrepreneurial to ensure fair and impartial access to banking services for all lawful businesses. Bitcoin isn't just money. It's an idea. An idea that money and power belong to the people and not the state. This is why we're here.
This is why Bitcoin exists. The legacy financial system is crumbling under its own corruption, and every act of suppression only underscores the need for decentralized alternatives. To be clear, I don't fully blame Mercury and Evolve for this. They're likely being forced into it by their regulators. Indeed, due to the Orwellian Bank Secrecy Act, the banks aren't allowed to disclose the reason for these matters to the affected customers. Banks like Mercury and any others who have willingly cooperated with choke point 2.0 should be subject to congressional subpoenas to explain themselves and also name and shame the regulators who co opted them.
The future of Bitcoin and America's role as a leader in innovation depends on exposing and dismantling choke point 2.0 and holding all those who participated in it accountable. Alright. Again, that is Colin Crossman writing this one for Bitcoin Magazine. I can't agree more. I think the SAFER Banking Act should definitely be on the table. It keeps getting rejected. But what I'm seeing here is when he was talking about Custodia Bank and their fight with the Federal Reserve, it's very much in a way, it's very much like Michael Saylor trying to talk to Microsoft and the rest of, honestly, the rest of corporations, not just in America, but around the world, saying, look.
This old way of doing things is not gonna cut is not gonna tread water anymore. And the only real way out is with Bitcoin. Okay? So he's talking to corporate America, you know, the corporate world, let's just say. And then we have Caitlin Long, who's saying at the federal level, talking to state and federal regulators when it comes to the financial institutions, that the way that they've been doing shit for years years years is also not going to tread water anymore. So we've got 2 main we honestly, we've got 2 main people that are working both sides of the fence. We got Mike over there working corporate world, and we got Caitlin Long over there working the financial legacy financial regulatory landscape world.
And, honestly, they're they're both coming to the table with the exact same thing. They're both coming with Bitcoin. It's going to be interesting to see how all this shakes out. Okay. So I was going to read this so this thing about the so called $100,000 sell wall for Bitcoin. I'm just gonna say a couple of words about it because I was thinking thinking maybe that this was why we had that price depression earlier this morning because, yeah, we lost, like, you know, $3,000 in in a few minutes, but it wasn't. It was about this it was all about the United States government simply moving a coin around. And honestly, I I I I'm gonna say it.
I think it's wrong for governments to manipulate markets. I I'm I'm calling them out right now. Not that it's gonna matter. I mean, it's not like, you know, Biden's listening to the podcast or anything like that. But this is market manipulation, which is illegal. It's also immoral. It's clearly unethical, but it's definitely illegal. You you get in trouble. If I were to do this, if I were to start doing things like on this kind of, you know, this kind of scale where I just put in induce fear into the market with no explanation whatsoever as to why I moved 20,000 Bitcoin around and everybody was looking at my wallet and I knew that, that's market manipulation.
It just is. So I'm going to we're just going to understand that there is always going to be a $100,000 sell wall, which is simply means every time you get close to $100,000, there's basically preprogrammed sell instructions from all kinds of probably on Kraken and Coinbase and not BitMex, more than thinking of, Bitfinex. Any of the other Bitcoin exchanges that are out there, They all these all these guys that hold Bitcoin have, like, just said, when you hit a $100,000, sell a 100 Bitcoin. And it they don't even I mean, it's like set it and forget it. They don't even have to worry about it. So that's what we mean when we're talking about the $100,000 sell wall. Why? Because it's a psychological number.
$100,000 is just as psychological as me going from 999 episodes of Bitcoin and into 4 digits where we I start talking about this will be episode 1,000 of Bitcoin and when I do it tomorrow. It is a psychological not not as much of a barrier for me when I'm talking about Bitcoin and it is a step. It is a huge step. It is a step function. A $100,000 Bitcoin means that we are no longer going to be in 5 digits. We're going to be in 6 digits. And there's a whole shitload of people that just seem to not understand the value proposition of Bitcoin. However, I guarantee you that over half of the people that have set their coins to sell at a 100,000 are buying them back when that shit dips to 95, 94, 91. I think we hit I think we hit sub $91,000 a few days ago.
I guarantee you over half of those guys there is just trading for them, which as wrecked bot on Nostr will let you know, if you don't know exactly what you're doing, you're gonna get wrecked. Let's run the numbers. West Texas Intermediate was up earlier today. Now it's down again. Point 18% of the downside, brings it to $67.88 a barrel. Brent Norsee, likewise, down a 5th of a point to 7168. And this time, natural gas is following suit. It's almost 5 points off to $3.20 per 1,000, while gasoline is up 2 thirds of a point to a buck 91 a gallon. So what happened? Well, OPEC is going to delay their meeting, and that didn't help, that didn't help the price of oil.
But on the other side of that equation was the fact that there seems to be no such thing as a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel because that shit fell apart real quick. I think I don't even think that thing got off the ground. But at first, price of oil was actually up a good, like, a good 3 points, earlier this morning, but has since fallen and now it looks like it's gonna be set to rise again. But gold is down 3 quarters of a point to $26.60.30. Silver is down 0.64%. Platinum is down, about 0.43%. Copper is down 0.19%.
Palladium is essentially moving sideways. Ag, biggest loser today. God. Coffee is off over 7 points to the downside. Biggest winner is lumber, 1.1% to the upside. Live cattle is down 0.42%, but lean hogs, 1.74% to the upside, and feeder cattle down 0.88%. Oh, by the way, I did do that talk at, the cat the Whitman County Cattlemen Association's annual dinner. So it was about a 150 some odd ranchers and or members of ranching families. And it went it went well. I was able to, you know, fully articulate just how bad the situation with the King Ranch is. And I'm pretty sure I heard a couple of gasps in the audience when I was lining out, essentially the suspension of the 5th amendment for 1 of the, subpoenaed people. I won't get into that here.
That was, the episode entitled Ranch Wars, colon King Ranch. So if you wanna go listen to that, please do and you'll you'll feel just how bad it is. But I had to talk for about 10 minutes, and was almost barely able to cover everything that really needed to be talked about. So but it went well. And for those of you that actually wrote back messages that you want wanted me to read to the ranchers while I was there, I was able to read 3 of them. Alright? And, it's not that I didn't, you know, didn't wanna read the rest of them. It was just I was coming up on time. But your messages thanking the ranchers.
They did they did, get get there. So just just understand. The Dow was down a quarter of a point. S and P is up a 5th of a point. Nasdaq is up just over a full point, but the S and P mini is down point 14%. Meanwhile, we're at $95,560 per coin. That is a $1,89,000,000,000 market cap, And we can get 36.3 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 bitcoin, of which there are 19,790,261.70 of. And fees are high, quite high right now. Almost a quarter of a bitcoin on average on a per block basis, and there are 98 blocks. Wow.
Carrying 264,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear high priority rates, 11 satoshis per satoshis per v byte. Low priorities, you're gonna be able to do a transaction at 9 satoshis per v byte. And what what is mining doing right now? One week rolling average is at 729.1 exahashes per second. Alright. From sell the news, and I'm probably gonna I'm probably actually going to name this episode of, Bitcoin and sell the news again because it seems appropriate. The boostograms came in user 115-56842 with 10,000 sat actually, 9,999.
Again, bringing the news that we can use, I have used knowledge from podcast pioneers like yourself, oh, to make life changing decisions. And Europod is a prime source of said knowledge. Well, that's very nice. That run on sentence was for you read your reading pleasure, god candle tomorrow, to celebrate your adding a 0 to your odometer. Cheers. No. Thank you. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. Ben Brasel with 5 1,000 says, thanks, David. This is my new favorite daily podcast. Oh, wow. Okay. Gained 1. Graham with a 1,000. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Bitgus with a 1,000 boost, baby. Wartime with 333 says, I love ranchers and small farmers. It's a crime.
What's being forced upon them? Thank you for continuing to fight. We might be about to get some wins soon. I hope so. I really do. We're gonna need them. Wartime with another 333 SATs with, clapping hand emoji. The bird, morning drive. Listen, stack SATs, the sailor doesn't get them. Let's see who else is up here. Pies to Pleb with thank you, sir, no thank you, and God's death with thank you, sir, no thank you, and that's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use. I got 2 in a row about Marathon Digital.
The first one is about the Bitcoin that they just bought. And this is out of decrypt. Who's writing this son of a bitch anyway? Stacy Elliott is writing this one. It it is titled Bitcoin miner marathon by $618,000,000 worth of Bitcoin. They did, in fact, pay that in cash to acquire approximately 6,484 Bitcoin, the company said in a brand spanking new SEC filing. And the Florida company appears to have bought near the top, paying an average of $95,352 per BTC, including fees and expenses. At the time of writing, Bitcoin prices settled just below 95,000.
We are as I as I told you, we're back up above 95,000, sitting at 95,455, just so you know. The company shareholders seem to like the sound of that news because as of Monday afternoon, during EU trading hours, Mara shares were 1.9% higher than they were when trading closed on Friday afternoon. And Marathon stock, which trades on the Nasdaq, closed at $26.85 on Friday after losing 2%, but the Bitcoin buying news seems to have all but erased that dip. So that's what they just bought. Right? Now they're not done, and neither are we, because I got this other one here from The Block, and it's written by James Hunt.
Merid or Marathon Digital is proposing a $700,000,000 convertible senior note offering to buy yet more Bitcoin. Okay? So they've already done this once. I I told you that they were gonna do the offering like last week and now they've actually bought the Bitcoin because they've done the deal. They've gotten the money and they've spent the money and they bought the Bitcoin and that's done. Now we're on to greener fields. Right? So let's get into this one, see what they're thinking. Mara Holdings has announced yet another proposed private offering of $700,000,000, 0 coupon convertible senior notes to repurchase existing notes and acquire more Bitcoin.
Subject to market conditions and other factors, the notes due 2031 will be offered to, oh, qualified institutional investors only. Yeah. You plebs. Yep. Suck it. With Mara expected to grant initial purchasers an option to acquire up to an additional $105,000,000 in aggregate principal amounts on the notes according to a press release, I suspect that this will be oversubscribed. The notes will be unsecured, senior obligations of Mara, and are not expected to bear any interest. The notes will be converted into cash or Mara common stock or a combination of both at Mara's discretion.
The company expects to use up to $50,000,000 of the net proceeds from the sale to repurchase a portion of its existing convertible notes which were due 2026 with the remainder used to acquire additional Bitcoin and for general corporate purposes. Mara announced a similar convertible note offering on November 18th, subsequently acquiring 6,474 Bitcoin, which was worth about $615,000,000 at current prices. And those Bitcoin are reflected in the firm's Bitcoin production and mining operation updates for November, also released on Monday. In addition to the recently acquired Bitcoin, Mara also mined 907 Bitcoin worth $86,200,000 in the month of November alone.
And that's up 26% on a month over month basis and a 6.6% share of all Bitcoin miner rewards. The firm has mined 8,563 Bitcoin and acquired 12,965 Bitcoin so far this year alone, taking its total Bitcoin holdings to 35,000 Bitcoin worth about $3,300,000,000 That's the largest of any public Bitcoin miner according to Bitcoin treasuries. Quote, November was a record breaking month for Mara and our mining operations achieving unprecedented levels of production driven by the successful deployment of additional miners and enhanced operational efficiency, Mara chairman and CEO, Fred Thiel, said. I want to remind everybody here about Mara Digital.
They blacklist wallet addresses. They do so at the behest of governments, especially the United States government. They are not good actors in the field, and I'm saddened by the fact that they have this much Bitcoin, that they are able to actually mine as much Bitcoin as they do. I mean, honestly, they they mined 907 Bitcoin in the month of November. 6.6% share of all Bitcoin miner rewards were given to a mining company that will blacklist your ass, it's pathetic that their mining pool has that their mining pool and their own mining operations in general is able to be, you know, have that much reach.
It's kinda sickening. But if, you know, hey, Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining mining is for enemies and I can't do a damn thing about it. So let's go down south. Let's take a little trip to Brazil where Helen Parts from Cointelegraph tells us that Brazil is proposing to ban stablecoin withdrawals to self custody wallets. Because, you know, you plebs suck. You shouldn't be able to do anything without the blessing of a government from somewhere. Brazil is considering a ban on stablecoin withdrawals to self custody wallets coinciding with the Brazilian real hitting all time lows against the United States dollar.
On November 29th, Banco Central do Brasil, the Central Bank of Brazil, issued a proposal to ban transfers on stablecoins like Tether to self custodial wallets like MetaMask. The proposal is part of a draft regulation and is subject to public consultation up until February 28, 2025, quote, the provider of virtual asset services is prohibited from transferring virtual assets denominated in foreign currency to a self custodial portfolio. Yeah. This is another this is what this is essentially, what do they call it? Capital flight.
But instead of actually leaving your borders, the people that are committing capital flight are actually still residents of your own country. And it's getting so bad in Brazil that they're actually proposing to ban this sort of activity altogether. Anyway, the proposed restrictions align with the Brazilian government's push to increase oversight of the foreign exchange market and regulate Brazilian capital abroad. Even though it's not really abroad, it's actually right there in Brazil. They're just tired of having their money used as toilet paper. According to the BCB's consultation document, the initiative aims to amend existing 2022 resolutions concerning virtual asset service providers in the foreign exchange market. The Brazilian Central Bank specifically proposed to expand the scope of the foreign exchange market with activities including crypto payments, sales, custody, and transactions denominated in a foreign currency.
Under the proposal, VASPs would be required to provide BCB with information including client verification, transfer values, and other details. So why self custody? While cryptocurrency and stable coin transactions are subject to know your customer checks and monitoring by centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, self custodial wallets do not require any user information to deposit or withdraw the funds. By definition, self custodial or non custodial wallets provide a method of interacting with cryptocurrency that is associated with full accountability and ownership of owned assets.
According to some self custody advocates, there are a few ways for regulators to limit the usage of self custodial wallets, but there is no way to ban such wallets completely. And that's important to understand. But the Brazilian real is collapsing nonetheless. The BCB's proposal to limit stablecoin transactions in Brazil comes amid the Brazilian real significantly dropping in value against the US dollar. Since January 1st, I assume from last you know, from this year, the Brazilian real has lost at least 23% of value against the dollar, with the dollar reaching an all time high of 6.09 real on November 29th according to TradingView data.
Many of the cryptocurrency community have linked Brazil's proposal to restrict stablecoin transactions to self custody wallets. They're closing the exits, this is a quote, while BRL is collapsing, Area Bitcoin cofounder Carol Souza said on Twitter. As the real dropped against the dollar, the local community has increasingly hedged the local currency's price depreciation by stacking stablecoins like USDT. According to Chainalysis, Brazil was the 2nd largest market globally in terms of stablecoin transactions this year, with the country's stablecoin transaction volumes accounting for 59.8 percent of its entire cryptocurrency market. Holy shit.
Brazil saw $90,000,000,000 in crypto inflows in the past year, lagging behind Argentina by just $1,000,000,000. So the real is collapsing to the point that people are just saying, fuck it. Let's get out of this thing and just but, no, they're not gonna go to Bitcoin, and they're not they're not using altcoins. This is what I was been trying to tell you over the last couple of weeks. Is you really for for those people that think that this altcoin thing isn't going to happen again, it's gonna happen a little bit again. But what you're really gonna be looking for and what you're really gonna see is an explosion of stablecoins.
And most of them are gonna just be fly by night operations that that all all it's going to be is altcoins wrapped in a different color Christmas paper. That's all it is. They're gonna say it's stablecoins, and people are going to go, oh, well, because it's a stablecoin, clearly, it's going to be backed by the United States dollar. No. That's not what's going to happen. What's going to happen is you're gonna buy a stable coin that nobody accepts. And by the time you figure that shit out, it's gonna be too freaking late. And they will have soldier shit into Bitcoin and be living on a beach somewhere possibly in Brazil. Who knows? But the stablecoin explosion that's fixing to happen, you don't wanna have any part of it. If you have to use stablecoins, then for I I don't know why you do, but if for whatever reason you do, stick with Tether or God forbid the circle stable coin, which is called USDC.
Tether is USDT. Either one of those is just fine. Okay? I mean, if you have to use them, that's what I'm saying. This new stuff that's gonna come that's gonna start barreling down the alleyway before you can shake your head, you don't wanna have anything to do with it. I personally don't have anything to do with any stable coins for any reason whatsoever because I don't need them. I'm not saying that I won't ever need them, I'm just saying that I can't in, you know, the next few couple of years. I don't see why I do need them. I've never used them. I I don't like them. I wish they didn't exist. But again, I got no say so. All you can do is protect yourself.
Right? So if you have to use a stable coin, use either Tether or circles like the USDC or the USDT. USDT is Tether's thing and USDC is circle stable coin. And just just use that, okay, if you have to use this shit. Now on to Africa, Bitcoin in Africa. Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame supports development with an investment in recursive capital. This is out of Atlas 21. On November 29th, Recursive Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in Bitcoin investments across Africa, the African continent, announced the completion of its first capital raising round. Fund 1, I think is what it's named.
Among the main backers are Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block Peter L. Bridger, Jr, former Goldman Sachs partner and chairman of Fortress Investment Group and Jeff Booth, author of the Price of Tomorrow. The fund led by Nigerian CEO, Abu Abu Bakr Nurkali Khalil? You know me. I can't pronounce these names. We'll focus on 3 strategic areas. 1, companies developing commercial products such as wallets or exchanges, and then mining operations with a focus on renewable energy. And then 3rd, innovative technologies like lightning network investments ranging from 50,000 to $100,000 per portfolio company aiming to build a robust Bitcoin ecosystem on the continent of Africa.
Nir Khalil, who's also serves as interim CEO of The Bitcoin Trust, a nonprofit organization founded by Jay z and Jack Dorsey that supports African Bitcoin developers stated, quote, the focus of Fund 1 is to lay the foundations for a thriving Bitcoin ecosystem in Africa that will lead the world in innovation, growth, and impact. Recursive Capital has already invested in several ventures including Bitnob, Betty, and Synota, s y n o t a. And next year, the company plans to launch Recursive Labs, a mentorship initiative for its portfolio companies.
So there you go, Jack Dorsey laying some cash back down on the table, investing in Africa, and he's been interested in Africa for as long as I've known about Jack Dorsey. So he's putting his money where his mouth is. Good for you, Jack. I'm I'm I'm proud of you, pal. Alright. So that is it for episode 999, the last palindrome episode of the 3 digit era of the and podcast, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin and, and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
Breaking News: US Government Bitcoin Movement
Market Reactions and Rumors
Bitcoin Market Manipulation Concerns
