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Join me today for Episode 1069 of Bitcoin And . . .


Topics for today:

• Snap, Crackle, Pop, and Drop
• Strategy Didn't Buy Bitcoin
• Address Poisoning with Jameson Lopp
• BTC Network Hits 1 Zetahash/s

#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd 

Circle P:

Maple Syrup and Soaps
 nostr handle: https://primal.net/p/npub172mu27r5yny0nnmvgjqwhx055dmsesrrx7j0p5d3pxagfx6xgxfsv75p3q
Twitter: https://x.com/beisnerds
Price list 
1 qt. $27 
2 qt. $47 
3 qt. $68 
1 half gal $45 
2 half gal. $80 
4 pt. $50 
6 pt. $75 
10 cup share box $80

Articles:

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/04/07/bitcoin-pops-and-drops-as-markets-swing-wildly-on-tariff-news
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/strategy-ceo-makes-the-case-for-corporate-bitcoin-adoption-in-mit-keynote
https://cointelegraph.com/news/saylor-strategy-skip-bitcoin-buy-87000-drop
https://decrypt.co/313581/conor-mcgregor-refunds-failed-meme-coin-auction-eyes-relaunch
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/bitcoin-for-corporations/bitwise-debuts-option-income-etfs-on-bitcoin-treasury-stocks-mstr-mara-coin

• https://www.cnbc.com/futures-and-commodities/
• https://dashboard.clarkmoody.com/
• https://mempool.space/
• https://value4value.info/
• https://fountain.fm/show/eK5XaSb3UaLRavU3lYrI
• https://geyser.fund/project/thebitcoinandpodcast

https://decrypt.co/313287/us-house-committee-votes-anti-cbdc-bill
https://cointelegraph.com/news/inside-the-trump-linked-american-bitcoin-mining-ambitions-to-dominate-the-industry-hut-8-ceo
https://atlas21.com/bitcoin-hashrate-reaches-1-zetahash-milestone/
https://atlas21.com/address-poisoning-attacks-on-the-rise-warns-jameson-lopp/
https://www.theblock.co/post/349834/former-binance-ceo-cz-joins-pakistan-crypto-council-as-advisor
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Find the Bitcoin And Podcast on every podcast app here:
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[00:00:02] Unknown:

It is 09:14AM   Pacific Daylight Time. It is the April   2025,   and this is episode ten sixty nine   of Bitcoin. And I have reuploaded   a an old episode.   It was episode I wanna say it was episode three twenty nine   of Bitcoin, and this thing happened in, like, roughly April of twenty twenty one where I   interviewed, at the time, I had just met him and I consider him now like to be an old   Bitcoin Twitter friend, you know, back when Bitcoin Twitter wasn't just totally cringe.   His name is Untapped Growth. And if you are a long time listener to the show, you've probably already   heard that particular episode. But   when I   switched my hosting company,   they were only able to get the last, like, 500 episodes that I did. And, you know, I'm on episode ten sixty nine, so, you know, do the math.  

There's a lot of episodes that did not get transferred over. Now most of them are daily news episodes because that's what we do here at Bitcoin and as I keep you informed   on what's going on in Bitcoin, and I'll be doing so today. But I just wanted to mention that I've reuploaded the untapped growth. Well, that's his name. It's my friend, untapped growth. And we talked about regenerative agriculture   and Bitcoin   and what he was doing.   And, yeah, I just kinda wanted to bring that back to life. So   don't be fooled. The I couldn't backdate it. You know? I couldn't just deliver it with the date of when it actually happened. So   it's gonna set   if you're not careful, it's gonna sound like I recorded it, you know, recently, but that is not the case. Alright? So please be aware   that the interview with Untapped Growth, which should actually be dropping as I'm speaking right now because I did it earlier this morning,   it it was recorded April I wanna say it was April,   April Fool's Day on, in 2021.  

So if you are,   if you're a soil nerd or a region ag guy or something like that, you might wanna go back and, listen to that one. It like I I said, it's it should be in your it should be in your queue today,   but please, please, please don't think that that we recorded this recently.   We did not.   However, what is recent   is the pop and drop of Bitcoin today, this morning, as the markets,   all of them, swung wildly   on, guess what,   tariff news. Yeah. It's the tariffs. It's the the Trump tariffs.   Christian Sandor   has this one from CoinDesk.  

It was a wild ninety minutes in the morning markets   with the Nasdaq swinging   from about a 5% loss to a 5% gain and then returning to being flat in a very quick order on a story,   which was later denied by the White House that president Trump   was indeed considering a ninety day delay   in the implementation   of his tariff regime   for all countries except China. Quote, fake news,   said White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt in response to the delay rumor.   The swing touched Bitcoin as well with it rising from the $74,400   mark to above 80,000   before retreating back to $79,000   still lower by 4.3%   over the past twenty four hours.  

And Ether, well, Ether is just freaking dying.   When when you compare it against Bitcoin, it's just   it is a   a dumpster fire.   Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out. Anyway, amid the ongoing market panic,   there are some green shoots,   though, with European Union commissioner, Ursula von der Leyen, saying that, quote,   Europe is ready to negotiate with The United States,   including   offering zero for zero tariffs on industrial goods.   President Trump, meanwhile,   said, quote, countries from all over the world are talking to us and claim Japan is sending a top team to negotiate.   Alright. So   if you   saw the whole entirety of   equity markets and, well, everything,   shit the bed   over the weekend and freaked,   you know,   properly   freaked out,   hey. This this is just gonna happen. And, honestly, you know, even Jim Cramer was saying yesterday that he expected   a black market opening on Monday.  

So what's going on here?   Was this a mistake   in in the news cycle saying that the Trump administration was considering a ninety day delay?   Nobody knows.   And and if it did happen, you gotta ask yourself the question, where did it come from? Now did it come from a leak? You know, was it, like, quote, leaked face fake news from the Trump administration itself to sort of take the edge off of a possible Black Monday event like we saw in 1987?   Who I don't know.   Or was it somebody else outside of the Trump administration   who desperately needed to somehow or another not have a 1987   style event   happen and cause yet another Black Monday,   especially off of the heels of what I would assume   could be looked at as a Black Friday. Now   nobody knows,   and that's one of the problems here   is that you you've got entirety   of world markets because it's not just The United States market that's down. European markets are down.  

All markets all over the world are having serious freaking issues because of all this.   So what does that say? Now some of you are gonna go, it's all Trump's fault. I know everybody hates orange man. Whatever. That's not it.   When markets are so flaky that they can completely erase   a year's worth of gains   inside of   an hour or two,   because that's what happened. Within an hour or two, you saw the   the Dow Jones Industrial Average retrace all the way back to last year in value.   I'm not all that worried. I I'm just not. Markets do this shit, especially when they are as fragile as the world markets are today.   And it all just it all is boiling down to the fact that nobody knows what to do.  

The only safe haven that the traditional   financial markets see at this point   is United States dollars.   And it's this is gonna make the dollar pretty strong, and that's not going to help our import export problems.   So   just be aware.   Nothing is safe at this point. It doesn't mean freak out, and it doesn't mean, like, I don't know, burn your you know, start, like, looting.   Don't do that.   Just hold on.   Because I get the feeling that this is and I've said it before.   I think this is just setting the stage for a massive set of negotiations.   Will they work? Who knows? Some of them will. Some of them probably won't.  

The China deal is a big deal. But then again, I keep thinking about how much I've always been bemoaning the fact that all we're doing is buying cheap plastic Chinese shit, and I'm getting kinda tired of it. You know? And and I'll you know, for those of you who do not know, I'll admit this.   When Obama ran for the his first term, I voted for him. And it wasn't because I was a Democrat either. It was because he was the only candidate who said that he planned   to get   United States   manufacturing   back onshore.   Nobody else said it, and I had promised myself I would vote for the first candidate   that opened their mouth and said that they would re onshore   all of the industry and manufacturing and all the stuff that we used to do,   all that went away.  

Starting,   honestly, after 1971,   it started really going away.   And I was waiting for somebody to say, hey. We want it back.   So I voted for Obama, and guess what? He did   absolutely freaking nothing,   which is kind of what I expected,   but I had to vote for somebody. And now, of course, I I just don't care because I'm tired of being lied to, but   whatever.   Just keep calm   just because you saw it, like, you know and for people that are like, hey. You're an asshole for saying this because   my retirement just got clobbered.   Your retirement also got clobbered during COVID.  

If you actually go back and look at the Dow Jones and all all of the equity market charts and you look at what happened over the weekend   versus what happened during COVID and you watch the COVID recovery and how fast that happened,   unless you're planning on dying tomorrow,   I think just be a little bit patient and we'll see what the hell happens because god only knows what's gonna happen next.   But   over   in Boston   at MIT,   Strategy's   CEO made the case for corporate Bitcoin adoption   as a keynote speaker. This is at a Bitcoin magazine written by Nick Ward.   At a recent keynote delivered at the MIT Bitcoin Expo,   Fong Li, the CEO of Strategy,   used to be MicroStrategy,   made a bold case for Bitcoin as a core component of modern corporate treasury strategy.  

With over 528,000   BTC on its its balance sheet, strategy has become the most visible and arguably   the most successful public company to adopt Bitcoin as a primary reserve asset.   Quote, we outperformed the entire Nasdaq,   the entire S and P five hundred,   the entire   magnificent seven, and we outperformed Bitcoin, Lee told the audience.   While strategy chairman Michael Saylor laid the philosophical foundation for Bitcoin's corporate use case starting back in 2020,   Lee's keynote drove home the executional and financial results.   The talk, which was part challenge and part case study, urged corporate leaders to question   everything from their education to the financial   to their financial assumptions   and to reimagine their balance sheet in a Bitcoin era.  

So corporations   are not performing   and Bitcoin offers a way out.   On day one   of the MIT Bitcoin Expo, Lee opened with a breakdown of corporate America's performance problem.   Of the 35,000,000   companies   in The United States, only the top tier, primarily S and P 500 firms, are meeting market expectations.   The rest are stagnating. Quote, almost every other company is not performing, Lee said.   He pointed the finger at entrenched financial orthodoxy,   MBA programs, elite consultancies, and Wall Street firms continue to teach the same playbook,   optimize the income statement,   reinvest in traditional assets, and stick to quarterly thinking.  

The result is systemic underperformance.   Quote, all they can do is the S and P 500, Lee said, noting even private equity,   venture capital, and hedge funds rarely beat that benchmark.   Lee's thesis,   it's not a lack of talent,   it's a lack of imagination.   What sets strategy apart, Lee argued, was its decision to treat the balance sheet as a strategic asset rather than just a passive one.   While most companies park cash in low yield government bonds or commodities like gold, strategy chose Bitcoin. Why,   if you're a company, wouldn't you do the same thing?   Make money off your balance sheet. Makes sense.  

Lee made the point that Bitcoin offers not just return potential,   but structural advantages.   It trades twenty four seven,   it isn't subject to central bank policy, and it provides corporations with instant global liquidity.   By contrast,   traditional capital markets operate two hundred and fifty two days a year, six point five hours a day,   19%   of the time.   Strategy has embraced this fully updating   its Bitcoin reserves in real time. Quote, we show our results daily. In fact, we update them every fifteen seconds on our website.   End quote.  

One of the biggest challenges,   for corporations adopting Bitcoin is the mismatch between traditional accounting rules and a twenty four seven asset.   Current standards were built for quarterly earnings and slow moving financial instruments, not real time not real time globally traded digital assets.   As Fong Li put it, accounting policies update every five years.   Accounting policies   don't work for Bitcoin.   Under GAAP,   Bitcoin is treated as an intangible asset,   marked down when prices fall but not adjusted upward when they rise, creating a distorted view of financial health.   To close that gap, strategy has adopted a more transparent approach. Quote, we show our results daily. In fact, we update them every fifteen seconds on our website.  

This real time reporting reflects   the always on nature of Bitcoin and signals to the market that strategy is playing by a different, but faster set of rules.   Rather than wait for instructions to catch up,   strategy is setting the standard for how the performance of Bitcoin Treasury companies   should be measured.   Since adopting its Bitcoin Treasury strategy,   MSTR   stock has become the most performant,   the most volatile,   the highest volume, and most interesting stock in The United States according to Lee.   Its performance has consistently outpaced traditional benchmarks, not just because Bitcoin appreciated,   but because strategy leaned into its identity as a Bitcoin native public company,   and it's not alone.  

Lee highlighted the growing list of companies replicating the model. Meta Planet, Semler Scientific, and KULR   Technology Group group, all of which   outperformed the S and P five hundred and and Bitcoin after adopting similar treasury strategies. Quote, this is a replicable strategy.   Everyone else should be doing this.   Lee closed the talk by challenging executives and investors to question conventional wisdom.   Strategy success did not come from following the crowd. It came from rejecting it. Quote, it takes courage. It takes original thinking.   It takes independent thinking. It takes bravery.  

And it takes Bitcoin. End quote.   As the first public company to turn Bitcoin into a cornerstone of its balance sheet,   Strategy under Michael Saylor's vision and Fong Li's leadership has redefined what's possible   in corporate finance, or as Li put it, quote,   Bitcoin allows corporations   to find freedom from the average, end quote.   We don't ever really hear a whole lot from Phong Li, the c the actual CEO of MicroStrategy.   Michael Saylor is generally pretty much the bombastic guy, and everybody wants to talk to him. Everybody wants to interview him, and I get it. I mean, he's a fun guy, but holy shit.   You know, it's not like we shouldn't be trying to figure out what Fong Li is thinking. So I'm glad that the that he was giving us this keynote at MIT so we could get a little bit more in-depth into what the CEO of of strategy is actually thinking. But remember   remember on Friday when   when China it was either Thursday or Friday. I can't I really can't remember.  

But when China said they were gonna do retaliatory,   tariffs and that tore up the market, that that's what what crashed everything   at the end of last week. Right? But   Bitcoin was in the green.   GameStop was in the green, although I have yet to see them actually purchase Bitcoin, but there's enough there's enough rumor action   and from their statements that they are going to buy Bitcoin that they're sort of Bitcoin adjacent adjacent. So they were in the green,   and strategy was in the green, and iBit was in the green, and everything else was dying.   Gold was having problems,   you know, so Peter Schiff wasn't happy.  

It took until all the way until   yesterday   that Bitcoin cut loose from its $84,000   peg and dropped down to 74,000.   It took, like, seventy two hours almost for that shit to occur. Well, okay. Forty eight. Yeah. Forty eight hours for that shit to occur.   And even though and I was, like, looking at today,   even though we we had that fall off the cliff for for the price of Bitcoin,   it still   is not anywhere close to as bad as the traditional equity markets.   So   even even then,   even with going all the way down to 74 or whatever,   74, 4 hundred,   it it still   still was more resilient than equity markets.  

But I wanna close this just by saying, hey. Just because   MicroStrategy is finding,   you know, finding favor in the fact that they   clearly have made a bold choice to put that much Bitcoin on their balance sheet,   their exposure   the the the sheer amount of exposure to the Bitcoin markets that they have   almost ties them   completely   and from for from now until the end of that company's life, whenever the hell that happens,   will   it's   inextricably   linked to Bitcoin. So whatever Bitcoin does, MicroStrategy is gonna do, and it's not the other way around.   Whatever MicroStrategy does is gonna be like a nap on, like, Bitcoin's ass. So I I don't see it as a two way street.  

But even then, shit. I mean, as much as I love Bitcoin, that would make me nervous.   Although, I still think that they've they've done the right thing.   Only if you're thinking about very long term plays, though. And I think that that's really where   this strategy   is work is going to work for them in the short term and even the the the mid to medium term.   I think there's gonna be so much volatility. It's gonna make shareholders of of strategy kinda seasick.   But in the long term, I think it's gonna be the best play. And speaking of,   it's about time that Michael Saylor did not buy Bitcoin.  

I mean, there there there are days when strategy needs to buy Bitcoin, and then there are days and weeks when they don't need to be doing that shit. And it looks like Saylor came to his senses after seeing all this tariff talk and said, you know what? Let's not buy Bitcoin.   And that's exactly what happened. Michael Saylor's strategy did not buy despite a dip below $87,000.   Helen Parks is gonna tell us a little bit more. Maybe we'll get some ideology   or idea as to what's going on in Michael Saylor's brain, and I hope it's what I'm thinking. But Michael Saylor's firm strategy,   the world's largest public   publicly listed corporate holder of Bitcoin, did not   did not buy more Bitcoin   In a filing with the US   Securities and Exchange Commission on April,   strategy announced it made no Bitcoin purchases during the week of March 31 to April.  

The decision followed a heightened   market volatility during the week with Bitcoin surging to as high as $87,000   on April   after starting the week at around 82,000   according to CoinGecko.   In the period from March 31 to April, strategy also did not sell any shares   of class a common stock, which it tends to use for finance financing   its Bitcoin buys   according to the filing.   As of April,   strategy held an aggregate amount of 528,185   bought at $35,600,000,000   or an average price of $67,458   per BTC.   Quote, our unrealized   loss on digital assets for the quarter ending 03/31/2025   was $5,900,000,000,   which we expect will result in a net loss for the quarter ending 03/31/2025,   partially offset by a related income tax benefit of $1,690,000,000   according to the filing.  

While strategy avoided buying Bitcoin last week, its cofounder and former CEO, Saylor,   continued posting about the crypto asset superiority   on social media, quote, Bitcoin is the most volatile because it's the most useful, Saylor wrote on Twitter on April.   And then what else have we got? Just the anything else. Oh, yeah. Oh, let's see. Oh, today's market reaction to tariffs is a reminder.   Inflation is just the tip of the iceberg, Saylor wrote in yet another Twitter post, and capital faces dilution from taxes, regulation, competition, obsolescence,   and unforeseen   events.  

Bitcoin offers resilience in a world full of hidden risks, he added on that tweet. So there there you go. He but here's here's what I'm not seeing.   I I need well, I don't need it to happen, but it would be nice   if Michael Saylor would say, hey. Look.   You know, there are times when you buy Bitcoin. There are times that you do not buy Bitcoin, and this was not the time to buy Bitcoin.   Unless you're unless you're pleb, you know, retail level, $25   a week, maybe $50 a week, you know, daily cost averaging or whatever.   Sure. Okay. That at that point, it doesn't matter. But when you're making massive purchases   and you know the market is freaking out because nobody knows what to do, that's probably not the best time in the world to actually buy Bitcoin because you need to let the suckers wash out first, and then you go back in. And when you when the smoke clears and the fog kinda clears a little bit, that's when you start pulling triggers.  

And speaking of pulling triggers, I got maple   trade   with his maple syrup and his sister Sarah's soaps. It's maple trade in the Bitcoin and the Bitcoin and is where I bring plebs like you with goods and services to plebs just like you that maybe want to buy those goods and services.   And this maple syrup is handmade.   He's not reselling it. He's not drop shipping it from some maple syrup manufacturer from freaking Canada. No. No. No. No. No. No.   This dude taps his own maple trees. He gets the sap. He boils it down. He puts it into bottles, and he sells it for Bitcoin   to people just like you. It's delicious. I've tried it. And the fact that it's handmade   makes it taste even better. You can get a quart for $27.  

You can get a half gallon for $45.   You can get six pints for $75,   and it's made by your friend, Maple Trade. He's on an Oster. And because he takes Bitcoin for his goods and also don't forget to ask him about Sister Sarah soaps. They're really good too. I've tried them as well, and they're fabulous.   But   make sure that when you go   and you go to his well, he doesn't as far as I know, he doesn't have a storefront yet. I kinda wanna change that. Like, I've got a new website. Maybe I can set up a a situation where I I am able to showcase the different vendors in the Circle p. But right now, you actually have to, like, DM him or tag him on Twitter at Beisnerds,   b e I s n e r d s. You can also find him   on Noster,   also at b e I s n   e r d s. If you have problems getting a hold of him on Noster, just go down to the show notes. I've got his in pub,   directly in the show notes. Just click the URL and you'll get right to him. I've also got his Twitter account or profile right as a URL right in the show notes so you can just click it and go right there. Make sure you tell him you heard it in the circle p on the Bitcoin and podcast because that way, he knows that I was able to make a sale for him. So he is going to run out of his maple syrup fast.  

You want to try his maple syrup, not only because it's delicious,   but because you will help me,   you will help maple trade, and you will help all the plebs   that have goods and services for sale   because that's what we do here.   We try to help each other do the things that we really love to do so that we don't have to do any of the crap that we don't wanna do.   Like this idiot, Conor McGregor.   Oh my   god. It just I mean, as if anybody was going to   actually think meme coins were gonna do anything in this market environment.   No. No. No. Conor McGregor just doesn't seem to, I don't know, read news or whatever.  

From decryp.co,   I got Vince D'Aquino   writing this one. Conor McGregor team has refunded   the failed meme coin auction,   but but they're gonna relaunch it. Yep. They're gonna relaunch it because they just can't get enough of stupid.   Stupid was on the menu. The restaurant would probably be out of it by now. UFC champion and celebrity Connor McGregor's   crypto token failed to launch after raising only 39%   of its minimum fundraising target during its twenty eight hour presale period that ended on Sunday.   The token,   developed by Real World Gaming DAO,   secured just $392,000   in USDC   from 668   bidders, falling far short of the $1,008,000   minimum requirement to proceed with the launch.  

Following the auction's closed,   closed, they stated on x that it didn't hit its minimum raise, adding that all the bids would be refunded in full. McGregor shared the announcement saying, quote, ladies and gentlemen,   this is real.   Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.   On chain data shows that all refunds were processed   and a settled batch transaction was deployed to the rwg.eeth   address at block, and then they give the block in the time. I I who cares? It it's all bullshit. Because this is what I'm getting at here is that you've even got Conor McGregor,   who still thinks that meme coins   are going to, I don't know, make him even more rich than he already is. I mean, I assume he's got a a you know, sitting on at least a little pile of money there, man. I mean, he's he's won a lot of fights, and UFC isn't exactly cheap with their payouts.  

But it just goes to show,   if you're not watching what's going on in the wider world, you're going to end up   thinking   that either, a, you're gonna get rich off of selling a bullshit meme coin, which you shouldn't do in the first place, or, b, that you're gonna get rich by buying a meme coin,   have you not looked   at the fact that nobody in the world, even like the people that are financial experts and have been so for forty years that will never even think about Bitcoin, much less meme coins, Even these guys don't know what the hell to do with their money, and you think this is the proper time to launch this crap?   You're either stupid   or I've got bridges all over Arizona that I'd like to sell you. Now on to Bitwise debuts   option income   ETFs   on Bitcoin treasury stocks,   MSTR,   MARA,   and coin.  

Derivatives, man.   Stay away from these. I'm giving you this news so that you know what the hell the direction of this wild ass market is going. Bitwise has introduced three new ETFs that provide   yield seeking investors with exposure to leading Bitcoin Treasury companies using a covered call strategy   designed to capitalize on equity volatility   while preserving Bitcoin linked upside. See, it's a win win win, people. And when you see that shit in the markets, you should probably run away. But the funds include   something called IMST,   which tracks strategy.  

There's IMRA,   which focuses on Mara Holdings, a top Bitcoin miner.   And there's ICOI   offering exposure to Conbase or, I mean, Coinbase.   Each ETF employs an actively managed options overlay,   writing out of the money calls on the underlying equity while maintaining a long position.   This approach is designed to deliver monthly   income distributions,   particularly act attractive in today's   highly volatile environment   while retaining   meaningful upside exposure to Bitcoin linked companies.   See, the the way that this shit's written is like there's no downside.   I highly,   highly recommend that you guys   be very careful   when you see language written this way.  

Oh, you're gonna get you're gonna get exposure to the upside. You're gonna get a monthly income distribution.   You've got yield. It's it's it's   it it it can't go wrong. Oh, yes. It can.   These are derivative products.   Right? You're holding   a derivative   of a derivative.   It's a second order derivative. You don't wanna have any you don't wanna push yourself this far out   into the curve that is   legacy financial markets. Just please stay away, and we'll run the numbers.   Futures and commodities and everything is bleeding as you might imagine, except for silver, amazingly enough. But oil, West Texas Intermediate,   is down one and a half percent   all the way down to $61   a barrel.  

Friday, it was 67   or 68.   Right? It was, like actually, I think it even peaked out at around 69. Yeah. It's all gone, bitches. Brent Norsee, likewise, down exactly the same, 1 and a half to $64.57.   Natural gas is down   1 and a half to $3.77   per thousand cubic feet, and gasoline   tumbling almost a full point back down to $2.03   per gallon.   Gold is below its $3,000   mark.   1.19%   of the downside brings it to exactly $2,999.30.   Silver, however,   as I said, up two and a third back up to $29.92   per ounce.   Platinum is down point 8%, copper tumbling 3.7,   and palladium is down 1.6%.  

Ag, please save us.   Not much saving here, guys.   Biggest winner, however, is cotton. 2.75%   to the upside.   Biggest loser is, oh, coffee. Oh, 6%   to the downside.   And live cattle is down well over a full point. Lean hogs are down a point and a quarter, and feeder cattle are down point   88%.   Now, here here comes the equities.   The Dow is down 1.77%   after after   its serial tumbling over the weekend. It now stands at 37,854   on the index.   The S and P is down one and a quarter. Nasdaq is down point seven eight, and the S and P Mini getting hammered as well 1.77%   to the downside.  

Oh, and by the way, the ten year treasury bond yield,   the ten year yield is now back up above four percent.   It was down to something like 3.8%   yield, I believe,   and that's what we were thinking that Trump was trying to do with all of this this   insanity   that's going on is to try to force Jerome Powell's hand   in in lowering the Fed interest rates because they cannot keep the ten year above the 4% threshold. But that changed this morning   when we had these wild fluctuations in the market.   We're apparently up over 4%   still,   so just be aware.  

$77,660   for one Bitcoin   is gonna get you a 1 and a half trillion dollar market cap, and we can only get 26 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our one Bitcoin of which there are 19,847,804.03   of. An average fees per block are pretty damn low.   We've got,   oh, I don't know. It looks like five blocks carrying   a measly 7,000 unconfirmed transactions   waiting to clear at high priority rates of 5 Satoshis per v byte. Low priority is gonna get you in at three, but mining   soared   yesterday.   Wow.   Hash rate right now stands at 906.9   exahashes   per second.  

That's pretty high,   but it's not as high as it it got, and I'll tell you a little bit more about that later from   brewing biology, which was,   what, Thursdays. Yes. Thursday's   episode of Bitcoin, and I got a lot of feedback on this one. A lot of people really like this. I got a lot of activity going on.   So I'm I'm gonna try I keep trying to think about different ways to approach the subject of soil,   but   I don't want it to get to where it's just nothing but a but a soil podcast because this is supposed to be different things. But   you guys really enjoyed this one, and I would read you all the boostograms that I've got. However,   fountain.fm   is sitting   here continuously spinning its wheels and not letting me see any of the boost that I was able to see, oh, I don't know, about thirty minutes ago when I started the podcast and I was setting up the show. So we'll we'll come back to that. Well, I'll let that one spin and put it at the end here. Okay.  

Let's see. Yep. That's it for the weather report so far.   Welcome to part two of the news you can use.   This one, I was gonna do for the Friday show, but as you might know, there was no Friday show. It just happened that I wasn't able to cut one for you guys, and my apologies for that. But I think this is important enough to carry forward for today.   Callan Quinn writing for Decrypt.   United States House Committee   votes to move forward   on an anti   CBDC   bill, I take this as good news. A Republican led effort to prevent the creation of a United States central bank digital currency   moved forward on Wednesday as the CBDC   Anti Surveillance   State Act passed out of the United States   House Financial Services Committee with a 27 to 22 vote.  

Sponsored by representative   Tom Emmer from Minnesota,   the bill seeks to prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital dollar, citing concerns over financial surveillance and the transformation of the central bank into a retail banking entity.   The bill also bars the Fed from indirectly deploying a CBDC   through intermediaries   and explicitly blocks it from using digital currency as a tool for monetary policy.   Emerson or Emer was it Emerson or Emer? Yeah. Emer   spoke in support of the bill during the markup session telling the chairman that the government   should never be involved in the business of creating tools for financial surveillance.  

Quote, unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, a CBDC   is a digital form of sovereign currency that is issued,   monitored, and managed   by a central bank. In short, a CBDC   is a government controlled programmable money that if   designed without privacy protections of cash,   could give the federal government unilateral authority to surveil Americans' transactions   and restrict   politically unpopular activity, end quote.   Unlike decentralized cryptos like Bitcoin, a CBDC   is, in fact, a government issued digital currency running on a state controlled ledger.   Critics,   and Emer is chief among them, warned that   it could open the door to surveillance of how citizens   spend their money and programmable features that could prevent individuals   from spending their money however it is they wish.  

Fierce opposition to a potential CBDC in The United States signals growing momentum   among privacy hawks and crypto friendly lawmakers who view a digital dollar as a Trojan horse for financial control, quote,   power hungry bureaucrats will stop at nothing in their quest   to gain control over the very people they're supposed to be working for, Emmer said, pointing to concerns China will use its digital yuan to track citizen spending and Canada's Twenty Twenty Two freezing of protester bank accounts.   Emerson first introduced the leading Republican bill to ban CBDCs in January of twenty twenty two.   The legislation passed the United States House of Representatives   in the one hundred and eighteenth Congress.  

Let's just go ahead and move on, shall we, to Savannah Fortis writing out of Cointelegraph,   American Bitcoin's ambition   is to dominate mining   according to the Hut eight CEO. Remember last week when I was telling you about American   Bitcoin, the company   that is apparently Eric Trump and Donald Trump and or Donald Trump Junior?   Yeah. Well, let's let's see if we can pull out a little bit more about what they're thinking here. I'm not exactly sure myself, but, hey,   maybe Savannah has something to say about it. Earlier this week,   Bitcoin mining giant Hut eight   revealed a partnership that includes two members, two, not one, but freaking two members of the Trump family,   Donald Junior and Eric.  

And   it plans to launch a new mining venture called American Bitcoin.   In an exclusive interview on decentralized   with Cointelegraph's   bite sized insight series, Hut eight CEO Asher Gnut   shared new details about the venture's vision, why the timing was right, and how the company plans to scale.   Quote,   we thought about splitting out our Bitcoin mining and energy infrastructure business for some time, Gannute said.   Meeting Eric and Don Junior and seeing their deep passion for Bitcoin and infrastructure   was the perfect catalyst.   According to Ganute,   the goal is clear,   to build one of the world's   largest   and most efficient   Bitcoin mining platforms rooted in American soil and aligned with pro Bitcoin sentiment   growing under president Donald Trump's administration. Quote, Eric told me, I don't wanna get involved in anything that isn't the biggest and the best, he said.  

The move comes at a pivotal moment for US based mining with China out of the picture post 02/2021   crackdown   and Washington now openly exploring the idea of a strategic Bitcoin reserve,   America's place in the global mining ecosystem is under transformation,   still   sizes and everything,   Gnut emphasized that efficiency   and cost effectiveness are core to the strategy, quote, we don't want to just be the biggest.   We want to be the most efficient   and cost effective miner.   If our cost basis isn't low, we might as well just buy Bitcoin, end quote. Well, it's good advice.   American mining or American Bitcoin structure allows it to mine BTC   at low cost, accumulate more when the market allows, and potentially expand into other Bitcoin ecosystem services.  

Hut eight   currently holds over 10,000 Bitcoin on its balance sheet worth up to $1,000,000,000   depending on the market conditions.   American Bitcoin aims to add more.   And the company isn't just bullish on Bitcoin, it's bullish on power consumption.   GNU pushed back on criticism that mining wastes energy, quote, power consumption has only increased with every tech revolution.   Cheap, excess energy is what drives Bitcoin mining, and a lot of that energy is renewable, end quote.   Looking ahead,   Hut eight's mining spin off has bigger ambitions, quote, our focus is scaling.   Our focus is taking this company public on a United States exchange.  

You'll hear more from us soon. Okay. So it not a whole lot there other than the fact that   they are really concerned with getting their power cost basis down to where it's easier to mine the Bitcoin or rather cheaper to mine the Bitcoin than to buy it.   And, honestly,   you know, at least they're going in the right direction. However,   I I still   just I don't I'm not sure about Eric and Donald Trump   and or, Donald Trump junior, rather.   I'm still not sure about either one of those guys'   absolute obsession over Bitcoin.   I   smell shit coinery just   just around the corner.  

I absolutely do.   I mean, I just keep thinking about it. I'm like, they're shitcoiners, man.   They're not they're not actual Bitcoiners. There there's something about them that just makes me go,   shitcoining.   And, of course, you know, if it wasn't for the Trump and Melania coin, I would still   I would still be thinking that way   because everybody falls into that trap. Just think of the guys who've been holding on to their ETH and then go look at the ETH, you know, over BTC   chart and and   you can you can shed tears for them if you were empathetic enough. But we've got other fish to fry   Because as I alluded to earlier   when we were doing the weather report,   Bitcoin hash rate reached   one zetahash   or zetahash.  

Yes. One zetahash.   It actually went well above   the 1,000   exahash   limit, which puts you firmly,   firmly into the Zetahash region. Of course, then again, as you know, it fell down back below that, but still, dude, we hit a Zeta Hash for the first time.   This is out of Atlas twenty one.   The Bitcoin network has just reached a historic milestone in its sixteen year existence.   Its hash rates surpassed one zeta hash per second.   According to several trackers, not just one, but several trackers   monitoring the network's compute power, this result was recorded between April 4 and April 5.   Data from mempool.space   shows a peak hash rate of 1.025   Zetahash   on April,   while BTC Frame   reported the 1.02   Zetahash threshold was already reached on the previous day.  

Coinsware   data   showed a peak of 1.1   Zeta Hash on April   at Block 890915.   The discrepancies between different trackers are due to various methodologies   used to calculate the network's hash rate. Casa's   CSO,   Jamieson Lott, previously noted   that estimating hash rate using only one trailing block instead of five can result in a difference of over   0.04   Zeta hashes per second.   Despite the data differences, Bitcoin's climb to one Zeta hash   equal to 1,000 exahash per second marks a 1,000   times increase or 1,000 x increase   since late January of twenty sixteen when the network first hit one exahash.  

To put things in perspective, Litecoin, the second largest proof of work network, currently has a hash rate of 2.49   petahashes   per second according to Coinwares,   making it roughly 40,000   times less powerful than Bitcoin in terms of its computational   strength.   Mara Holdings is currently the largest Bitcoin miner with over 50 exahashes   per second of compute power, while the majority of the total hash rate is channeled through Foundry USA and Antpool   according to the Hash Rate Index.   At least 24   publicly listed companies are involved in the mining industry for Bitcoin according to companies market cap Com.   Other major contributors to the Hash Rate include Riot Platforms, Core Scientific, CleanSpark, Hut eight Mining,   and Terawolf.  

So   shout out us for, you know, one zeta hash per second of compute power   onto other things, but also   from Atlas twenty one,   address poisoning.   Well, the attacks are on the rise according to Jamieson Lop, who we earlier heard from in the previous story.   Address poisoning attacks on Bitcoin are increasing.   That's according to Jamieson Lop, cofounder and chief security officer of Casa,   a company specializing in Bitcoin custody solutions.   This type of fraud,   which tricks users by exploiting similarities between wallet addresses,   is becoming more widespread thanks to low transaction fees allowing attackers   to target many addresses with minimal investment.  

Here's how it works.   In an address poisoning attack,   the scammer sends a small transaction,   usually less than a dollar, to the victim using a custom made address controlled by the attacker,   and that has the same first and last characters as a recently used address   by the victim.   When the victim later wants to send funds to the legitimate address,   they might mistakenly copy the fake one from their transaction history, unknowingly   sending Bitcoin directly to the scammer.   But how is it possible to create such a similar address?   Through brute force where you're generating   millions of random addresses   and discarding the ones that don't resemble the target.  

There are many free tools online known as vanity address generators designed to create customized   or look alike addresses.   Lop conducted an in-depth analysis of the entire Bitcoin blockchain identifying around 48,000   suspicious attacks   since 2023.   His methodology looked for transactions that are well, transactions with one input and one output involving two different addresses   that had the same first four   and last four characters.   Although most of these attempts were unsuccessful,   Lop documented   at least one confirmed fraud   in which a victim sent 0.1   to a malicious address and then twelve hours later sent the same amount to what was likely the intended   recipient,   quote.  

That single successful trick could have easily yielded a much higher return on investment as the address from which the funds were spent   held nearly 8 Bitcoin,   Lop noted in his analysis.   During his talk at the MIT Bitcoin Expo, Lop attributed   the rise in these attacks to the current environment of low transaction fees. He said, quote,   these attacks are a result of us being in a very low fee environment.   If we had higher fees, I think it would greatly discourage people from performing many of these dusting attacks unless they found other ways to improve their success rates, end quote.   So how to protect yourself?  

This kind of attack is not unique to Bitcoin. Other blockchains have also been affected. In May of twenty twenty four, an Ethereum user lost 70 oh, god. $71,000,000   in a similar attack,   although the funds were, okay, later recovered after negotiations.   Lot believes software wallet developers could implement user alerts to mitigate the risks of these scams. Quote,   I think it would be easy for wallets to say, oh, this transaction came from a lookalike address and flash a big red warning.   Do not engage,   said Lop.  

The growing prevalence   of these attacks   highlights the importance of carefully verifying wallet addresses before sending in any transaction, double checking   every single character. Yeah. That's really the way that you do this.   So if if for whatever reason and honestly, you don't even have to think about the fact that these phishing attacks or or these,   address poisoning attacks are going on.   We should be doing this anyway. I do.   I check.   I I I do check the first characters, and I do check the last characters. But I also pick a couple of spaces, like, places in between in the address   where it would be highly unlikely   that they'd be able to, like, figure out because the way it work   the way it works is that most people   are going to look at the very first of a sentence or or a string of characters and the very last because it's easier   for your brain to interpret where you're looking.  

And that's just psychology.   If you're looking in the middle of especially   Bitcoin addresses, which are like, you know, uppercase and lowercase numbers and characters and all, you know, it it becomes like just   it hurts your head.   Right? But you really gotta focus in there into the center and then to the right of center and then to the left of center and then the first and then the end. You look at, like, four or five different places, and you confirm   at least you know, this guy is saying every single character.   And you could do that simply by you know, if you wanted to, you could   paste   the address of where you think it's gotta go.  

And then you copy and paste the address of what you've got set sitting in your wallet, and you post both of those into, like, a Word document.   And and then   you check both of them with both those addresses with find. If one of them if if you put one of the addresses in there   and only one shows up instead of having,   like, the find feature in in, like, Microsoft Word or something like that, instead of showing two,   like, the address that you intend to send this to, like, the the address that that that you're really want like, the address that was given to you   by the guy that you've been talking to on the phone, and he texted you the address or something like that.  

You put post that in like that and, like, any other instances of the address that you're gonna send to. And if you put the address that you know you're going to send to into the find function   and you've got two addresses in the document but only one shows up, you know it's different without having to look at it because the computer basically essentially said, no. There's that's an I, not an l. Right? And and that's another another issue here is that i's and l's look suspiciously alike, and some people can spoof for the number one depending on the font.   Just   be careful.  

Alright? Be careful and take care of your,   how you look at your addresses.   Alright. So former Binance CEO,   Changpeng Zhao has joined the Pakistan   Crypto Council   as an adviser.   Why?   I mean, of all places, Pakistan seems very odd, but the block.c0   has this one. Who's it written by, though? Oh, MK   Manaliov,   I think is how you pronounce it. Anyway,   CZ,   the former CEO of the crypto exchange giant Binance,   has joined the Pakistan Crypto Council as a strategic adviser   to help guide efforts on crypto infrastructure,   education,   adoption, and other pursuits according to local media.  

His appointment to the Pakistan Crypto Council, a regulatory body within the Pakistani   government   that oversees blockchain and crypto powered initiatives,   comes amid the country's larger effort   to embrace cryptocurrency.   Good luck with that. The Pakistani government formed the Pakistan Crypto Council in mid March of this year according to additional local media reports.   Though he did not address working with Pakistan's   government specifically,   CZ wrote on the social media platform Twitter on April   that he, quote, officially and   unofficially advises a few governments on the crypto regulatory frameworks and blockchain solutions for government efficiency, expanding   blockchain   to more than just trading, end quote. Further, quote, I don't get involved in politics or anything else, just crypto, he added.  

As Pakistan   Crypto Council CEO, Bilal bin Saqib,   told Bloomberg TV on March,   Pakistan's broader push into digital assets comes after the election of United States president Donald Trump.   The Trump administration has promised   to make America the leader of digital assets   complete with efforts to create a crypto reserve including Bitcoin. Quote,   Trump   is making crypto a national priority,   and every country, including Pakistan, will have to follow suit   or it will be at risk of getting left behind. Our plan, as the Pakistan crypto council is very clear on, Pakistan is done sitting on the sidelines.   We want to have regulatory clarity.  

We need to have legal   legal framework that is pro business. We need institutional   adoption.   We want Pakistan as the leader of blockchain powered finance, and we want to attract international investment,   Saqib said.   Though CZ previously served as CEO of Binance, he left the firm in accordance with the United States Department of Justice   after pleading guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act in November of twenty twenty three. Binance and CZ   have been increasing their presence in South Asia and the Greater Middle East. And on March,   Binance received $2,000,000,000   from MGX,   an Abu Dhabi based technology investment firm,   in one of the largest financing deals that Binance has ever received.  

With MGX taking a minority,   not a majority, but still, even after all that money, they've only taken a minority stake in Binance.   Binance led the cryptocurrency spot market in February handling nearly   $651,000,000,000   in trades,   36.8%   of the $1,770,000,000,000   total according to Block's data dashboard. Wow.   So c z rolling on in Pakistan.   I   who knows if Pakistan ends up being some kind of world leader? I I I honestly doubt it. I I honestly do, but we'll have to wait and see.   And   that was it. I'm still here looking at my, at Brewing Biology, the,   Thursday's last Thursday's episode of Bitcoin Ant, and I just don't have any boostograms. They're they're just not showing up. So there's something going on over there at Fountain, and that's okay. I mean, it it I will try to include   the higher ones, in tomorrow's show,   but we are finished here today.  

Episode ten sixty nine is in the bag, and I will see you on the other side.   This has been Bitcoin and and I am your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.   Have   a   great   day.