Join me today for Episode 898 of Bitcoin And . . . is LIVE!
Topics for today:
- Morgan Stanley is On Deck
- $5.1 Billion Pension Fund CIO is All In
- Senate Strikes Down SEC Accounting Rule
- Ibex Pay Exits the US
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
https://serve.podhome.fm/episodepage/bitcoin-and-/veto-coin
Circle P:
https://primal.net/p/npub1ugnq57hn8va6xqr5zywy2eunem6c624583vkt0dmv40ep7tnnxkqrr898l (faster)
email: [email protected] (slower)
Product: Comfrey
One full root for 20$
Or root cutting for 1$ each
Buyer pays shipping
[[Episode 726]]: https://fountain.fm/episode/15491737864
Articles:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/1-5t-morgan-stanley-is-buying-us-spot-bitcoin-etf
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/5-1-billion-pension-fund-cio-joins-non-profit-organization-focused-on-bitcoin-adoption
https://cointelegraph.com/news/senate-resolution-sec-crypto-rule-passes
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/05/16/biden-order-to-halt-china-tied-bitcoin-mine-beside-nuke-base-came-as-us-firm-just-bought-it/
- https://www.cnbc.com/futures-and-commodities/
- https://www.cnbc.com/bonds/
- https://dashboard.clarkmoody.com/
- https://mempool.space/
- https://fountain.fm/show/eK5XaSb3UaLRavU3lYrI
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/bitescrow-beta-v1-0/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/ibex-pay-quits-us/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/wasabi-wallet-v2-0-7-2/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/damus-v1-8/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/minibits-v0-1-7-beta/
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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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[00:00:00]
Unknown:
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin Ant, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. Uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 10 o'clock AM Pacific Daylight Time. It is 17th day of May 2024. This is episode a palindrome episode 898 of Bitcoin. And as usual, we begin with the circle p where plebs like you bring their goods and services to plebs just like you, courtesy of me, David Bennett, host of the Bitcoin and podcast.
The circle p is really sort of a way to get the circular economy doing my part to get the circular economy a boost, for Bitcoin. Because if it's not if it's not being sold for Bitcoin in the circle p, then it's not in the circle p. You have that's that's a requirement. You can take fiat. You can do whatever, you know, you want. You can have whatever payment rails you want, but one of them's got to include Bitcoin. Whether on chain, lightning, even e cash, any one of the 3 or hopefully all 3 of them, then you're in you can be in the circle, Pete. But if you're just gonna take Fiat for your goods and services, no. Because that's not what this is designed for. Today, as I have been doing all week long, is XiXi 21 m, he's bringing you the conferee plant. And if you are interested at all in being able to have mulch and compostable materials and things that will compost down into liquid and you can spray like a high nitrogen, a high nutrient liquid onto your plants or or just drench around your other plants, then confere's sort of the way to go.
It's like 45% nitrogen. And if you get this stuff to break down, you're gonna have all the nitrogen that you need. You're not really gonna need any fertilizers. And the my favorite way to do it was to cut it back about 6 or 7 times a year because it'll just you just cut it and it grows right back. It doesn't do any damage to the plant at all. And then just mulch around whatever it is that I'm going to want fertilizer and minerals because it's it's a it's a mineral magnet. It just it's tap roots go down so deep that not only does it hit, like, basically permanent water and after a while, it's drought tolerant and drought resistant, but it also is mining minerals out of the soil and bringing it up into the leaves. And when you chop those leaves off and either use it in your compost or just mulch or throw it in a barrel and let it just liquefy because it will do that. It smells really bad, but it's really effective.
You're gonna get you're gonna basically be pulling all these minerals up out of the bottom layers of your soil, put them into the leaves, and then that mineral goes wherever the hell it is that else that you want it to go, plus all the nitrogen that goes along with it. You can get a $20 root cutting, a full root cutting, or you can get small root cuttings at a buck a piece. I recommend getting 20 of them and starting them out. The full root cutting will grow much, much faster. But once the small root cuttings once they finally peak up after, you know, 2 to 7 to some I've had them go as long as 7 or 8 weeks before they peak their head above the ground, they're permanent. So wherever it is that you're gonna put them, make damn sure that that's where you want them to go because they ain't never coming out. You're never gonna be able to dig those things out because it's just that way. If you wanna know all about it, then episode 726 of Bitcoin and will tell you everything you need to know about Comfrey and why it is you want this miracle plant in your garden.
Buyer pays shipping. His in pub for Noster will be in the show notes. But if you wanna get through to them through email, it's she she 21m@protonmail. That is s h I s h I, the numbers 21 and the letter m@protonmail .com. Takes a little bit slower, but you will you'll still get it. Now, this morning, Morgan Stanley announced
[00:04:58] Unknown:
that they've been buying Bitcoin ETF exposures. That's right. And quite a bit of it too. Bitcoin Magazine,
[00:05:04] Unknown:
Vivec sends starts us off. Recent 13 f SEC filings have revealed several major United States institutions allocating serious money to Bitcoin via the spot ETFs, with these filings disclosing the holdings of institutional investors with over $100,000,000
[00:05:26] Unknown:
allocated. After the SEC
[00:05:30] Unknown:
approved several spot Bitcoin ETFs earlier this year, investors have eagerly awaited these disclosures. The filings reveal names like State of Wisconsin Investment Board, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, and others. Pausing to remind you that the JP Morgan and Wells Fargo Holdings are not all that impressive. But let's get into this Morgan Stanley stuff. The latest disclosure shows mammoth financial services firm, Morgan Stanley, has bought $269,900,000 worth of grayscale's GBTC. This makes Morgan Stanley one of the largest institutional holders of GBTC besides Susquehanna's $1,800,000,000 position.
With over $1,500,000,000,000 in assets under management, this allocation signals the Wall Street titan's growing conviction in Bitcoin's role in portfolios. It joins other major banks like JPMorgan, BNB Paribas and Royal Bank of Canada that have disclosed spot Bitcoin ETF purchases. Despite some firms like Vanguard opposing Bitcoin to their own detriment, the broader shift has been towards embracing Bitcoin exposure. Clients are demanding access to Bitcoin's growth prospects as both inflation hedge and an alternative asset class, Old Guard Bank steadily allocating to Bitcoin ETFs represent a monumental change. Morgan Stanley's purchase follows executives speaking positively about Bitcoin's potential.
Though still a small portion of their assets under management, it indicates legacy finance sees Bitcoin's value. As major traditional institutions warm up to Bitcoin, accessible ETFs have enabled dipping their toes in. The q one disclosures provide tangible evidence these giants are acting on growing conviction in Bitcoin's staying power. So now it's Morgan Stanley. And okay, so they're $1,500,000,000,000 in assets under management, and they've allocated $269,900,000 just to Grayscale's GBTC, which begs the question. After all of the outflows of GBTC, Morgan Stanley, instead of choosing BlackRock, chooses grayscale.
After all of these outflows and their high management costs, It seems odd that they didn't go with BlackRock or one of the other ones. I mean, there's 9, 10, 11 of these things to choose from, and they chose to go all in with grayscale. They didn't even spread it out to a couple of different ones. I don't know why they would do that, but this is what they've chosen to do. Secondly, while it's not a great big percentage of their assets under management, they were never going to do that in the first place. They're going to start small and they're probably going to keep it small. I mean, honestly, this is when you add Bitcoin into the mix of all the financial products that they have to choose from.
Bitcoin's you know the last basically the last one on the scene. So I don't expect them to do stuff to do anything like go over, you know, 1, 2%, especially in the 1st few years, if ever. If I mean, it depends on on what what we see happen with Bitcoin. But in either event, I just don't expect them to do stuff like half of their allocation automatically gets reallocated into Bitcoin. I don't think that they're you're gonna see anybody really do that, but you never know. I mean, degeneracy is everywhere. A $5,100,000,000 pension fund.
Now their CIO has joined a nonprofit organization focused on Bitcoin adoption. Who the hell are we talking about? Well, Bitcoin Magazine again. This is Nick Hoffman writing, today, the proof of Workforce Foundation, a 501c4, tax exempt nonprofit organization, has announced the addition of 2 distinguished members to its board of directors, Ajit Singh and Rafael Zaghuri. According to a press release sent to the magazine, this duo is being brought on to further strengthen the foundation's mission to promote meaningful, education based Bitcoin adoption among workforce organizations.
Ajit Singh joins the board from his current role as chief investment officer of the Houston Firefighters Relief and Retirement Fund, a $5,100,000,000 pension fund, and the first in the United States to add Bitcoin directly to its balance sheet in 2021. Singh has also served as the chief risk officer and deputy CIO for the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, managing a global pension fund with approximately 144,000 participants across 25 United Nation member organizations. As institutions continue to learn about Bitcoin, I am excited to bring my experience to the Proof of Workforce Nonprofit Board of Directors, Singh stated.
Bitcoin was created for everyday workers, with its greatest attributes discovered through meaningful learning. Proof of workforce is well equipped as a reliable resource for any organization, institution, state or city, in pursuit of a strong and healthy workforce. Rafael Zaguri, the chief investment officer and head of research at Swan Bitcoin, also joins the board. Zaguri is known for creating the Nakamoto portfolio, an open source software tool that demonstrates Bitcoin's impact on fund portfolios. His extensive background includes co founding OpenCo, a leading Brazilian Fintech, and holding executive roles at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and Merrill Lynch in New York. Quote, this dynamic addition to our board of directors positions us as a high level global resource for any pension fund, labor union, workforce organization, or government body interested in meaningful, education based Bitcoin adoption, stated Proof of Workforce founder and president, Don Bai.
Ajit and Rafa join us with an overwhelming abundance of experience in both portfolio to Rafael's creation of the first open source portfolio analytics tool for Bitcoin on the balance sheet, our board's experience in Bitcoin firsts have been broadly deepened. Proof of Workforce has already made significant strides in promoting Bitcoin adoption. The foundation played a pivotal role in helping the vocaville firefighters become the second union in the United States to purchase and hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet and help the Humboldt Bay firefighters become the 3rd union to do so. And internationally, the foundation assisted the Salvadoran Firefighters Association, in also holding Bitcoin on their balance sheet.
The foundation's board, which includes prominent Bitcoiners Joe Carlasare, Lisa Howe, Chris Alimo, and Magdalena Granowska. None of which I've never heard any of these names. So prominent Bitcoiners, I I guess this is a Bitcoin Twitter thing. I've never heard of these names, but whatever. They boast diverse expertise in law, energy, multimedia, and mining. Additionally, the foundation announced that Josh and Dan of Blue Collar Bitcoin will be stepping down from the board but will remain involved with the organization and thank them for their leadership and support while at the foundation. Proof of Workforce Foundation says it provides all services at 0 cost. More information about the organization can be found on their website here, and that is proof of workforce.org.
All one word, proof of workforce dot org. Proofofworkforce.org. Alright. So here's the here's the interesting thing that I the most interesting thing that I found in this particular, this particular story here is that first, Ajit Singh is the chief investment officer of the Houston Firefighters in Relief and Retirement Fund. Okay. So you're talking $5,100,000,000 in assets under management. Because Houston, if you've never been there, Houston's one of the largest cities that there is in the world, much less the United States. And I think pretty much is the biggest city in in Texas. Right?
People talk about Dallas, Fort Worth, but that's really 2 different 2 different cities that joined together to form this ultra massive metroplex. And I'm pretty sure that Houston kinda dwarfs all of that shit. You're just a huge amount of firefighters. And these are just firefighters. They're not cops. They're not EMT. It's not the teachers credit union. It's just people that get on red trucks and go play with fire. Just the firefighters. And you're talking $5,100,000,000. What happens when the Houston Police Officers Union gets in on this?
Credit unions for the public school teachers in Houston. I mean, you're talking about a lot of money, dude. But what was the the most fascinating thing that I saw was Arjeet Singh, this guy, this CIO, with $5,100,000,000 in assets under management, says the following. As institutions learn about Bitcoin, I'm excited to bring my experience. Bitcoin was created
[00:16:02] Unknown:
for everyday workers.
[00:16:05] Unknown:
That's an interesting statement. You're talking about a guy, 5 point you know, chief investment officer, controlling $5,100,000,000 for the firefighters in Houston, Texas, saying that Bitcoin was created for everyday workers. It's almost socialist. That's an almost socialist statement. Everyday workers. Whenever you hear the for the workers. Yeah. It's not that I don't like workers. I'm just saying that we didn't throughout history, It's kind of labor stuff has always been kind of, you know, attached to socialism and getting into, like, communism, marxism, Leninism, and all that kind of stuff. But still, we have a guy with $5,100,000,000 of assets under management saying that Bitcoin was created for everyday workers, not highfalutin smart ass mother mother truckers, just regular people, Regular guys out there. And he says that its greatest attribute is discovered through meaningful learning.
Proof of workforce is well equipped as a reliable resource for any organization, institution, state or city in pursuit of a strong and healthy workforce. His his what I'm getting at here is that he's focusing on the education side of Bitcoin, not just buy it and hold it, not just stack stats stats stats and stay humble. He's not giving us all that. He's giving basically one of the things that I look for most in high quality Bitcoiners are people that actually know what they're doing is when they say the people that say this, I don't tell people to buy Bitcoin.
I tell people to study it. I don't tell people to allocate half of their life wealth into Bitcoin on day 1 because I told them to. I tell them to go read a book about it. And I have 5 books that I will give to people so they can read about it, so they can learn about it, so they can make the decision for themselves whether or not they want to learn it. I think that this is good news. The whole socialism thing and the whole labor force and work thing aside, which just it just I'd say that just simply because it always raises the hairs on the back of my neck. But all that aside, I don't know. This is actually a pretty good signal coming out of a whole bunch of noise.
And where where's the rest of that noise? Well, let's get into it. The United States Senate passes a resolution that overturns the SEC crypto rule on banks. They threatened that it was gonna happen, and apparently it happened sometime yesterday. Turner Wright, Cointelegraph, a majority of lawmakers in the United States Senate has passed a joint resolution calling for the SEC to strike down a rule after or that affects financial institutions doing business with crypto firms. In a 60 to 38 vote, that is a huge majority, 60 to 38 vote on May 16th, United States senators passed resolution 109 and which is a resolution nullifying the SEC's staff accounting bulletin number 121.
The commission's rule requires banks to keep customers' digital assets on their balance sheet with capital maintained against them, a measure many lawmakers and industry leaders have criticized as stifling innovation. Quote, the tally, a stunning 60 yays in the senate vote, sends a pretty strong signal that both houses of congress across the political divide clearly disprove of this rule, said the Crypto Advocacy Group Blockchain Association in a post. On May 8th, before the resolution passed the United States House of Representatives, president Joe Biden said that he intended to veto the bill to, quote, protect investors in crypto asset markets and to safeguard the broader financial system.
If the US president vetoes the legislation, it will return to the United States Congress, where it will require a 2 thirds majority vote to pass again. Quote, the threat of a presidential veto denies the fact that there is growing awareness among the voting public, particularly the young people, that crypto is something our elected officials should care about, said the Blockchain Association. The vote represents an atypical bipartisan move by the United States Senate, which is split 51 to 49 in favor of Democrats. According to senator Cynthia Lummis, it was the first time this session of congress passed stand alone crypto legislation.
The White House did not immediately release a statement on the resolution passing, quote, it is clear there is overwhelming opposition to SAB 121, and I urge president Biden to reconsider his previous statement of intent to veto the resolution, said representative Mike Flood. The joint resolution could be a bellwether for a different crypto bill, the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act. The legislation clarifies the roles of the SEC, as well as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, would have in regulating digital assets. It passed out of committee in July of 2023 and is expected to be introduced into the house for a floor vote in May.
So we'll have I wonder if Biden's gonna make good on his threat to veto it. And here's see, here's the thing with the veto for all of you guys that are either living in the United States and just kinda don't care about this kind of thing or for the people that are out of the United States that, like, live in other countries, under a completely different governance scheme. This is the way it works. The sent the the it it depending on where the bill originates. A bill, depending on what kind of bill it might be, either originates in the House of Representatives or in the Senate.
Doesn't matter which one it resin it it it comes up to be in. It's not it doesn't matter where it's born. If it's born in the house of representatives and it passes through there, then it goes to the Senate. If it's born in the Senate, then it and it passes there, then it goes to the House of Representatives. No matter where it went, both of the houses have to pass the bill. Then it goes to the president's desk. The president can sign that bill, and it then it becomes law. He executes because he's the executive. It's the executive branch. He executes the bill, therefore, it becomes law.
Or the president can veto it. Now if the president vetoes it, that's not the end of the story because the people have a reply, and the reply is in the following format. It goes back to wherever it originated from, and if it passes again and goes to the house and it passes there, but it these the second time through, if 2 thirds if it's passed by 2 thirds of these houses, the senate and the the house of representatives, it cannot be vetoed. It is executed immediately without the president's say so, and that is a political that you don't want that. If you're the president, especially if you're if you're for president to be president again, you do not want the basically, what's going on is the people of the United States saying, you're wrong.
Your veto is worth squat. You don't want that go you don't want any any bill. It doesn't matter if it if it, you know, if it was like a Social Security bill or a crypto bill. It does not matter. It means that your office is weak in the face of the voice of the people of the United States because it went back to Congress, and Congress said, screw your veto. Take your veto, and you can shove it straight up your ass. It is an it's an embarrassment for the administration. So will he veto it? Because if it goes back and it passes by 2 thirds majority, then it's instant law. That means that we didn't need that dude in the first place, and the people's voice will have spoken loud and clear. Again, no president running for, vetoes overturned like that. Alright. Last up for the first half of the show, out of CoinDesk, written by Jesse Hamilton and Arian Ashraf, we have this one.
Biden order to halt China tied Bitcoin mining beside Nukebase came as United States firm just bought it. Man, that is a terrible headline. We'll explain it right now. An American Bitcoin mining company, CleanSpark, got caught up in this whole United States China political war after buying mining sites in Wyoming within close proximity of a United States nuclear missile base from mine 1, a company with Chinese ties. Now on Monday, president Joe Biden ordered a Bitcoin mining facility near Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming to stop operations, citing a threat to national security as it uses foreign source technology.
The order said that mine 1 is a majority owned by Chinese nationals and all mining equipment on the property must be removed from within a mile of the military facility in Cheyenne, which houses Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBMs. While this may not be a surprising move in and of itself, the timing stands out as mine 1 had just sold those sites to CleanSpark less than 1 week prior to the order. Again, Biden does this executive order a week after the Chinese people in question already sold the mining sites in question to a United States company. This was gonna come back to haunt. On May 9th, CleanSpark said it was buying 2 mining sites for nearly 19,000,000 in cash with a 45 day closing without naming a specific seller.
The miner said it will deploy China based Bitmain's latest generation mining machine, noting that it plans to expand the site by an additional 55 megawatts, from 75 megawatts. So they're gonna add a whole bunch more megawattage to it. A spokesman for CleanSpark said that the company was unaware of the order prior to buying the mining sites, but acknowledged the concerns in the executive order and intends to press forward with the deal. Quote, the executive order and the involvement of CFIUS, both of which we were unaware of before signing the deal, has added an unexpected layer to the closing process, but we're working through these developments toward a satisfactory closing, the spokesperson told CoinDesk in a statement.
Quote, we respect the oversight process and are dedicated to ensuring that our operations bolster national security and benefit economic development, particularly in Wyoming, a state that has been at the forefront of developing and nurturing a pro Bitcoin environment. Neither MineOne nor lawyers at Loeb and Loeb who handled the property deal for the company responded to request for comment. No. And they won't for a while anyway. The details of the $19,000,000 deal, were fully described in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission from CleanSpark. The purchase was highly dependent on the securing of massive amounts of energy required to run the business.
The larger of the two properties is about 4,000 feet from the closest edge of Warren Air Force Base. From mine 1, the sale agreement was signed by Xiaming Li, identified as the company's director. Li, who could not be reached by CoinDesk for comment, has also been president of China's Xingtai Food Company, a partner at TCC Capital, and reportedly managed almost $12,000,000,000 in assets at Cinate Insurance Company. He's got a doctorate in economics from Fordham University according to the past press releases. Lee was also briefly the president of BitOrigin Ltd, a Mine 1 investor and a company that was reported to have garnered similar scrutiny previously from Washington.
The SEC disclosed contract with CleanSpark outlined a due diligence period extending 15 days from the May 8th deal the deal was signed or the sorry. The May 8th date that the deal was signed and the purchase could be scrapped if mine 1 didn't satisfy several conditions, including government compliance matters. Quote, I have been deeply involved in national security affairs for nearly 4 decades, and I'm well aware of the potential risks of many different types of encroachment on important defense infrastructures, said Tom Wood, a CleanSpark board member who once served as or a served in senior United States Navy roles and as a military analyst in a statement.
Quote, the presence of a CCP owned data processing facility near a facility like Warren, which houses, you know, a portion of the nation's ICBM forces legitimate cause for concern as noted by the president's order. End quote. He said he's familiar with the CFIUS process calling it impartial, data driven, and non arbitrary. And he said that if the United States mining business can address the concerns in the order, I would consider this a significant win win for the United States as well as CleanSpark. This use of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, CFIUS, their powers to shut down the acquisition by owners tied to China marked the 8th such case use case of CFIUS, 7 of which involve China, according to lawyers at Hogan Lovells who specialize in this issue.
Ann Saladin and Brian Curran said in an emailed analysis that this was the first presidential prohibition relying on the expanded authority over real estate transactions granted to CFIUS and the president under the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018. So what does it all mean? Well, it sounds to me like somebody dropped the ball, but it's only a $19,000,000 deal. So that part's not surprising. What is kinda surprising, though, is the timing of this entire thing is I don't know. I got a problem with the timing. Biden waves his flag that is in the form of an executive order saying, see, I'm going to I'm going to squash mining. I'm going to kick these dirty Chinese out of the country because they're too close to the air force base. Well, that part, I I I get that part.
But the thing had already been agreed to be sold. So the only thing that he can back back into is these couple of clauses that were in the executive order saying that not only was it Chinese owned, that wasn't real you know, that was just one of the things. The other two things that he had a problem with was the fact that the electronics involved could be used for monitoring and espionage. Okay. Well, but now it's gonna be in control of the United States firm. I don't see the issue. So I think I get the feeling that what's gonna happen is this. A clean spark, now that this is all out in the wind and everybody understands what's going on now, I get the feeling that the lawyers are gonna come to an agreement with the with the executive branch of the United States government and not as much as rescind the executive order, but I think that they're going to allow this.
Because the Chinese people that own the company are gonna be gone. Because CleanSpark is a United States based company, they're going to allow anybody and everybody that needs to come in to do their inspections and check shit out. They're going to allow that to happen. They're too deep in the weeds on this deal to pull out. 1,000,000 have already been spent just on paperwork and lawyers and filing alone. Alright? They are not about to let this shit go down this shit go without a fight. So I fully expect that CleanSpark will be allowed to operate these facilities, but they will be heavily monitored.
And why anybody put these things that close to Warren Air Force Base in the first place unless they wanted to do espionage, is beyond me. But it was owned by the Chinese. Who knows what the hell is going on out there in global political macro bullshit? But we've got numbers to run. CNBC Futures and Commodities. They got West Texas Intermediate Oil up, oh, half a point. Wow. $79.65 per barrel. $2.59 per 1,000 cubic feet. Gasoline is up, 2 and 2 and 5th points? Yeah. 2 point no. 1.19%, $2.56 a gallon. All your shiny metal rocks are doing very very very well. Oh, shit. Hold on. There's some breaking news breaking. Hold on.
Gold is up 1 and a third, silver is up damn near 4 a half percent, platinum is up 2%, copper is up 3 a half percent, palladium is up over 1%. What's breaking? OpenAI dissolves team focused on long term AI risks less than 1 year after announcing it. So OpenAI doesn't want anybody saying anything bad about AI. And I also heard that Sam Bankman or not Sam. Sam Altman. Yeah. Sam Altman from OpenAI basically said that earlier this morning that we don't need universal basic income. We need universal basic compute. Does anybody even know what the hell that means?
What universal basic compute, what I'm guaranteed some some cycles on a world computer? Are you are you kidding me? In fact, world computer brings me to the to this notion that just came into my head when I said that. It will not surprise me one bit if Sam Altman and Vitalik Buterin and the whole OpenAI and Ethereum world end up coalescing into each other. We're gonna have to deal with this Ethereum security bullshit every day of our lives. It's I don't think it's ever gonna go away.
[00:35:33] Unknown:
We it it it's amazing.
[00:35:37] Unknown:
But I guarantee you that the minute that Sam Altman said, universal basic compute, I'll bet you that Vitalik Buterin heard that shit and is figuring out a way to get a hold of Sam Altman. I mean, that Sam Altman's already got Worldcoin. You know? It wouldn't surprise me if we don't see some kind of merger with the Ethereum Foundation and OpenAI. God help us. God help us. I hope that that doesn't come to pass. Alright. So, biggest winner in agricultural futures is coffee. Biggest loser today is sugar. Good. Live cattle up almost a full point as is feeder cattle. Lean hogs are unchanged.
Dow is up no, 0.14%, and everything else is in the red, but not by a whole lot. So it looks like people are waiting on stuff again. $66,910 is the market cap of Bitcoin, which brings us to a $1,320,000,000,000 market cap. You may, if you so choose, purchase 27.9 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your one Bitcoin of which there are 19,000,000 699,439.87 of. And the average fees per block has fallen again. Point 1 5 BTC taken in fees on a per block basis. And how many blocks are there, you ask? Well, there are right now a 207 blocks waiting or carrying a 160,000 unconfirmed transactions, waiting for high priority clearance at 13 satoshis per v byte. Low priority is 11, and anything under 4.3 is being purged from NPULS around the world, which are operating at a combined hash rate of 638.4 exahashes per second. It's a little high.
Okay. So have you have you gotten a podcasting 2.0 app yet? Or or are you still actually laboring through legacy podcasting apps like Apple Podcast or some other such bullshit like SoundCloud? Just don't. Don't. Don't. Even overcast does not have modern podcasting features. Alright? So if you go to podcastindex.orgforward/apps, you'll be able to find all of the new podcasting apps. And this is how the people that give me boostograms and stream me satoshis, this is how it works. If you want the Bitcoin and podcast to do well, then use a podcasting 2.0 app and fill up the wallets and stream satoshis and send me boostograms. You can even point at me and laugh in the boostograms.
I don't care. But it's the way this show remains sustained. And if you go to podcastindex.orgforward/ apps, you will find the following names for podcasting 2.0 podcast apps. Trufans, Podverse, Podcast Guru, Fountain, PeerTube, LN Beats, CurioCaster, the Split Kit, Cast O Matic, and Breeze. They will all bring chapters and transcripts and clips and the ability to send me boostograms and stream satoshis. There's all kinds of stuff you could do with podcast 2.0. And speaking of boostograms, here they are from Cheeseheads are first. This was episode 897 of Bitcoin, and Joey Del Lago with 3333 says, audio on fountain was fine. Thanks for the continuous signal.
B square b squared laser with a row of ducks. 2222 says great show and thank you. No thank you. Dubravco was 1730. Says bring from being from Wisconsin and a current Texan, suck it, Trebek. Sean Connery. Shuck it. Shuck it, Trebek. I cannot do a Sean Connery impersonation. Dobrovko with another 17/20 says, roaring kitty meows. El Salvador is putting their money where their mouths are and proving it to the world. That's awesome. Also, just ponder what kind of deadly Resident Evil movie like protection MicroStrategy has to protect their keys.
Kiss me the shivers. Holy shit. Yeah, dude. Umbrella Corporation had some pretty tight security there, man. Dubravco with 1710 says wealth of for regarding wealth of networks, per government likes a smaller point to control a thing. That is why US BTC or custodial BTC has to be protected from bad actors. Pies with a 1,000 says, thank you for being the most informative value for value podcast. Thank you, Pies. Pies with another 1,000 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Satoshi boy with 500 says, nothing. Pies with 420 says, thank you, sir. Again, I thank you again. And wartime with 333 with cheers. No. Cheers.
God's death with 237. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that is the weather
[00:40:50] Unknown:
report.
[00:40:56] Unknown:
Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use. Bit Escrow Launches Developer Playground and New Website. Quote, we're setting a new standard for escrow services, making Bitcoin transactions more secure and versatile, check out the new website developer [email protected], announced Tristan Baytich on stacker.news. Quote, this has been a very long time coming. A huge milestone accomplished. It was really hard. 2.5 years in the making, in fact. Looking forward to your feedback and seeing what amazing projects you'll build with Bit Escrow, said the developer.
[00:41:37] Unknown:
So what's new? Developer playground,
[00:41:41] Unknown:
you can experiment with Bit Escrow API in a controlled environment with support for all of the test chains. There's a new website to explore comprehensive resources including developer pages, branding guide, press kit, and much more. Developer tools are there. You can access APIs, SDKs, npm libraries, and a test suite all built from scratch using typescript. Other key features? Non custodial security, 187x faster transactions, 1 5th the cost of traditional services, and 0 paperwork. So if you're considering any kind of escrow service, you might wanna check out Bit Escrow. They have been around for a while, seem to be fairly trusted, but do your own research on that. But they have been around for quite a while. Now Ibex has they're pulling they're pulling out of the US. Let's just get to it. Ibex pay suspends services in the United States.
They are a lightning payment processor, and they're pulling out following a period of intensified regulatory scrutiny and uncertainty in the country. Users are urged to arrange for their outstanding balances to be transferred by May 31st. This is bad news. I don't like this shit. Quote, after careful consideration, it's been decided that effective 31st May 2024, all IBEX pay services in the USA, only the United States will be suspended. Thank you for your support you have given us, and we hope to serve you in the future. Yeah. Good luck. It means the United States would actually have to, you know, become sane again. Quote, this was not an easy decision to make. But after careful consideration in light of recent events, we have concluded that this is the most appropriate choice for the current circumstances.
A big thank you to all our US customers for using the IbexPay products and to Swan for being an incredible partner. We have loved working for and with you, said CEO Jose Lemus. Quote, Ibex Pay continues to operate in all other locations and our Ibex hub service will continue to operate globally, he announced. Okay. Look, Ibex I got a particular a particular warm place in my heart for the guys over at Ibex. I don't I can't remember if it was Jose, the CEO of Ibex, but if it was it was either him or one of the the higher ups at Ibex was good enough to lend their time to the beef initiative's very first beef initiative mini conference in Texas. And that was the one that I went to. I've only been to 2 Bitcoin themed things. That's BitBlock Boom in 2020.
And a couple of years later, I went to the 1st beef initiative in what was it? Kerrville? I wanna say it was Kerrville, Texas. But Ibex was there because Ibex had basically been partnering with the beef initiative to allow ranchers that are cutting their own meat and selling their own meat products. That was the one of the payment methods that a lot of them were using. So not only does shit like this affect, you know, Ibex clearly, because they're pulling out of the US, but now people in the you know, some of the vendors in the beef initiative have gotta figure this shit out. So shit rolls downhill when this kind of crap happens. Honestly, I don't think they needed to get out.
I I mean, I I understand the sentiment. I understand being fearful, but you should at least wait for a cease and desist letter from the SEC. I mean, that just because you get a letter from the SEC doesn't mean you're all going to jail. It means that they want you to stop. It's when you don't stop that you got some real issues going on, even though all that's bullshit. But be that as it may, I think this is I've never seen this before. I've never seen people in this space get this freaked out so quickly. And all this is doing is lending energy and power to the SEC because you're you're now now Department of Justice, SEC, CFTC, all these guys are now they're feeling empowered.
See, it's working. Hell, we didn't even have to send a letter to IBEX, and now they're gone. This is what happens when you tuck your tail between your legs and you don't even put up a fucking fight. What do you think is gonna happen? The bully is becoming empowered. All this is doing is empowering the SEC and the rest of the thugs over at the Fed. Well, when I mean Fed in this case, I mean the federal government, not the Federal Reserve, because they have nothing to do with federal government. They're they're about as federal as Federal Express. But the point is turning your tail and running away from the bully just empowers the bully.
This is not helping, Ibex. I mean, I love you guys, but this is not freaking helpful at all. Now turn turn the tables.
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Wasabi Wallet. Their version 2.0.7.2 was just dropped, featuring coin joins directly to another wallet.
[00:47:13] Unknown:
At least somebody's got some spine left. Wasabi Wallet is an easy to use, privacy focused, open sourced, and non custodial Bitcoin wallet. Quote, Wasabi 2.0.7.2 release is out. You can now join or coin join directly into another wallet straight into cold storage. This feature is available from your coin join settings after you upgrade. Download, verify, and install the latest version on wasabi wallet dot I o. That's wasabi wallet dot I o, announced the project. Quote, in the program, you can set another wallet in the coin join settings to which you want to coin join. In this case, anonymity score target is not considered. Once the coin join is completed, your coins will be transferred to the wallet that you specified as was explained in the release notes. So who coin joined directly into another wallet in the face of all the regulatory shit that is scaring the likes of Ibex out of the country.
And, again, I will state it that it is embarrassing as a United States citizen that no other company or country wants to do business with me simply because
[00:48:29] Unknown:
I mean, I I feel like I'm the Russian.
[00:48:33] Unknown:
I I do. I literally feel like I am hated and, like, I'm scourge of the planet, and nobody should ever talk to me simply because I'm a United States citizen. And right now, I honestly, I cannot blame them. And it makes me embarrassed. And it honestly, I wonder if I have a libel suit against the United States government for embarrassing me on the world stage like this. Probably not, but it would be interesting to consider. Be nice for a class action suit. Domus version 1.8 has been released. There's a new video player, as well as an emoji selector.
Domus is a Noster client for Apple Services. Okay. So, Domus v 1.8 delivers new emoji selector, a better video player, quote reposts, and multiple other improvements. Wait a minute. We've already had quote reposts. What are you saying? I don't know. Version 1.9 dev is underway with an up and coming highlighter feature that you can clip highlights from the web and other posts and share them to your feed. Oh, interesting. If you want to test out the latest up and coming features, make sure to grab a damas purple membership to get that access. Okay. Well, I've got I think I've got domus purple.
Do I have domus I'm pretty sure I've got domus purple.
[00:49:55] Unknown:
Let's get through this first.
[00:49:57] Unknown:
So what's new is a new emoji selector. It's now easier than ever to select emoji reactions. Just long press the reaction button to pop up the new emoji selector. Thanks Terry for implementing this. Quote reposts. Quote reposts are now listed on post. Oh, just like on the dead bird site, which is, you know, Twitter or x or whatever. Worthless. New full screen video player. Our video controls were pretty bad, before, but this has been improved in the new version. You can now seek videos, view them full screen, and airplay them onto your TV thanks, Daniel, for this feature. Improved long form style.
Long form posts now show the image and related tags. Thanks, Eric. Yeah. I'm gonna have to test that one out. Account recovery. Uh-oh. Bug fixes. Thread loading is greatly improved. We now support the latest NIP 10 specification for improved compatibility between clients. We also added an account recovery feature called first aid. You can use this to create a new contact list if for whatever reason you don't have one anymore. If you're running into issues following people, you can use this to recover your account. Okay. So, basically, recover your people you're following, which I've lost follower the people that I'm following, I've lost several names several times.
I've I've deleted my entire list at least 7 7 or 8 times. You know, early days, people. We're we're still early days. But let's see. Let's go back in here.
[00:51:40] Unknown:
What was it that I was looking at? Hold on. There was something in here that I wanted to that I really wanted to get get through. Something about something about hot.
[00:51:54] Unknown:
Oh. Oh, well. I guess I missed it. I guess my brain just farted, and you heard it. Sorry. Silent but deadly. Mini Bits version 0.1.7 beta, multiple currency units, improved UX, and improved navigation. It's a mobile e cash wallet. E cash, e cash, e cash wallet with a focus on performance and usability on Android. New native release of MiniBits Wallet is out. MiniBits now supports multiple currency units issued by Mintz. With this change, wallet adapted heavily its UX and navigation. The wallet is now organized by currency units, not by Mintz.
Last visited unit screen is remembered and shown on the very next start. This wallet, this makes the wallet ready for upcoming multi mint payments, where a payment amount could be funded by more than a single mint. Transaction screens now show related mints in header with whole UI improved along the way. Your lightning address is now one tap away from wallet screen. Transactions moved to their own button tab. Last but not least, you can grab your own custom mini bits wallet address instead of the random one, just for a small donation, though. You'll receive Zaps or any lightened payments as well as e cash encrypted over Nostra network. Grab 1, put it on your Nostra profile, then let the sats flow.
Fair to say, there are losses as well. This version had to drop support to connect to the mints using the Tor daemon. Tor library for React Native is not maintained and could not be incorporated into the build. If anybody would wants to take this, we'll put it back. So, yeah. There you go. MiniBits is now doing, multi mince, which brings me to this question. I I want to reread this sentence right here. The wallet is now organized by currency units and not by mints. The last visited unit screen is remembered and shown on the next start.
This makes wallet the wallet ready for upcoming multi mint payments where a payment amount could be funded by more than a single mint. Okay. It's that last sentence. Upcoming multi mint payments. Remember, AMP's, atomic multi payments, where, on the lightning network we were I have not I have yet to see an amp, but we talked about it a lot. And it was basically a way for if your Lightning payment was too big, that it would be broken up into several different payments, and then or or recompiled on the other side after it got through all of the lightning nodes that it needed to be routed through so that it could be recompiled on the other end. And if one of those payments missed, the entire payment was basically nullified. You wouldn't get a partial payment. That's why they called it atomic multipath payments or, yeah, a
[00:55:08] Unknown:
amps multipath. The whole point that I'm getting at here is that now we have a USD ecash, and I talked about it on Wednesday.
[00:55:21] Unknown:
Right? And if you if you're not on Noster or not on on Bitcoin Twitter, then you you may not know what I'm talking about. But the e the whole e cash thing that's come up has been going even faster than lightning development has been going. That's my opinion and I'm sticking by it. I'm I cannot keep up. And just, you know, just earlier this week or, like, at the end of last week, they talked about these people at ECash started talking about, well, now it's sort of just for lack of better term, it this isn't exactly what it is, but for lack of better term, think of stable coins as a version of e cash. Right? A USD backed e cash.
Okay. But now we just said that there's gonna be multiple currency units in e cash according to this many bits announcement. So if there's a USD version of eCash and there's a, I don't know, a Euro version of e cash and somehow there's a Mexican peso version of e cash Is it possible that we could use multiple currencies multiple e cash backed currencies multiple e cash is backed by national currencies. The their versions of it, their version of the USD, their version of the peso, their version of the euro, and like an atomic multipath payment. I mean, if if that's even remotely true, it seems like the justice department of the United States, as well as the European Union, as well as anybody else in the Western it looks to me like the minute that they figure that out, if I'm right, and I I totally reserve the right to be wrong. Right?
[00:57:13] Unknown:
Get wow. That worked out. If I'm right, and you can use multiple different versions of all these different currencies,
[00:57:25] Unknown:
I think the justice departments of the respective countries are going to lose their ever loving mind. It's gonna make them it seems to me like it has the potential for them to start screaming even louder about money laundering. So for all the guys that are developing eCash and Mintz and anything to do with that ecosystem, For the love of God, do not ever tell anybody your real name, that you have an address, that you may have a phone and a phone number, an email address. Please, for the love of god, go dark. Don't start a company.
Don't file an LLC. Don't file a c corp. I don't know how you're going to make this is where value for value really comes in. If you want the Bitcoin and podcast, then you need to donate. If you want eCash, you better donate to the developers that are not going to start a company for a revenue model. Because that's the only way that they're going to be able to continue doing their work. Because if they do start a company with a revenue model, they're gonna be like Ibex, and the first people that don't get to use the servicer will be United States citizen.
[00:58:41] Unknown:
Okay? So and I don't want any of these people going to jail because they've, a, they don't deserve it. B,
[00:58:49] Unknown:
we need these we need this. Right? I have been talking for the last week about a 1000000000 identities going dark. That's gonna need to happen. I'm maybe not a 1000000000, but, you know, let's say a couple 100000000. Just identities that just stop stop using legacy anything. They it's like they just disappear.
[00:59:12] Unknown:
I don't know where any of these people are. They just left,
[00:59:17] Unknown:
like went to Galt's Gulch. This is I think we may be at the Galt's Gulch entry point. And if anybody has ever read or seen the movies, the Anne Rand book, or seen the movies, Atlas Shrugged, you know what I'm talking about. I think we're here. Because what we're wading into is a complete destruction of anything that anybody in the legacy financial system has the capacity to understand. It's moving too fast for them. And we've got a very vicious animal backed up into a corner. And and now we're performing ninja moves at the speed of light, and it's going to piss off the the animal that's in the corner even more. It's gonna be even more scared because it's gonna be like these shadows just flicking in front of it. And at one point or another, it's just it doesn't care whose blood it draws.
It's just going to put the claws out there. And if we're not careful, it will be us that actually impact the claw and the claw not impact us because we're flying around too damn fast. The only thing that I can figure for developers to do at this point in this space is go dark. Either go dark or somehow or another whatever it is that you're developing, you better be dead sure that it can never, under any circumstances, and that includes changes in laws in the future that you cannot foresee. Get you into any kind of trouble whatsoever with the DOJ, which means you better get a hold of somebody who's really good at constitutional law in the United States.
And that kind of shit ain't exactly affordable. So I don't know what we do except to go dark. That's gonna do it for the morning roundup. Dad says jokes Marvin Gaye used to keep sheep in his vineyard He'd heard it through the grapevine Not a bad way to end the week. Not terrible. Xplbzx. Thank you for the 69 sats, and thank you for telling me that the new mic sounds good. I I appreciate that because it's like I don't I when I listen to it on playback when I was doing the testing, it definitely, in my mind, sounded better, but I'm not the one that I'm trying to please. It's you guys that are out there, including Gaygrove, that zapped me a 121 sats. I appreciate that, sir.
Consider consider what it means to go dark on development. Is it possible to go completely dark on your identity but still have an actual identity in the legacy world? The kind of one that you need because you need a bank account. You're gonna need to be able to get cash because none of these people are figuring out how to use Bitcoin yet, but still be able to competently develop the very things that are going to make the Department of Justice in the United States very, very angry. Is it what has to without going completely dark and selling everything that you own and buying an Airstream trailer and moving around the country, Short of doing that, what can people do?
Give it some thought, 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 Ant, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. Uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 10 o'clock AM Pacific Daylight Time. It is 17th day of May 2024. This is episode a palindrome episode 898 of Bitcoin. And as usual, we begin with the circle p where plebs like you bring their goods and services to plebs just like you, courtesy of me, David Bennett, host of the Bitcoin and podcast.
The circle p is really sort of a way to get the circular economy doing my part to get the circular economy a boost, for Bitcoin. Because if it's not if it's not being sold for Bitcoin in the circle p, then it's not in the circle p. You have that's that's a requirement. You can take fiat. You can do whatever, you know, you want. You can have whatever payment rails you want, but one of them's got to include Bitcoin. Whether on chain, lightning, even e cash, any one of the 3 or hopefully all 3 of them, then you're in you can be in the circle, Pete. But if you're just gonna take Fiat for your goods and services, no. Because that's not what this is designed for. Today, as I have been doing all week long, is XiXi 21 m, he's bringing you the conferee plant. And if you are interested at all in being able to have mulch and compostable materials and things that will compost down into liquid and you can spray like a high nitrogen, a high nutrient liquid onto your plants or or just drench around your other plants, then confere's sort of the way to go.
It's like 45% nitrogen. And if you get this stuff to break down, you're gonna have all the nitrogen that you need. You're not really gonna need any fertilizers. And the my favorite way to do it was to cut it back about 6 or 7 times a year because it'll just you just cut it and it grows right back. It doesn't do any damage to the plant at all. And then just mulch around whatever it is that I'm going to want fertilizer and minerals because it's it's a it's a mineral magnet. It just it's tap roots go down so deep that not only does it hit, like, basically permanent water and after a while, it's drought tolerant and drought resistant, but it also is mining minerals out of the soil and bringing it up into the leaves. And when you chop those leaves off and either use it in your compost or just mulch or throw it in a barrel and let it just liquefy because it will do that. It smells really bad, but it's really effective.
You're gonna get you're gonna basically be pulling all these minerals up out of the bottom layers of your soil, put them into the leaves, and then that mineral goes wherever the hell it is that else that you want it to go, plus all the nitrogen that goes along with it. You can get a $20 root cutting, a full root cutting, or you can get small root cuttings at a buck a piece. I recommend getting 20 of them and starting them out. The full root cutting will grow much, much faster. But once the small root cuttings once they finally peak up after, you know, 2 to 7 to some I've had them go as long as 7 or 8 weeks before they peak their head above the ground, they're permanent. So wherever it is that you're gonna put them, make damn sure that that's where you want them to go because they ain't never coming out. You're never gonna be able to dig those things out because it's just that way. If you wanna know all about it, then episode 726 of Bitcoin and will tell you everything you need to know about Comfrey and why it is you want this miracle plant in your garden.
Buyer pays shipping. His in pub for Noster will be in the show notes. But if you wanna get through to them through email, it's she she 21m@protonmail. That is s h I s h I, the numbers 21 and the letter m@protonmail .com. Takes a little bit slower, but you will you'll still get it. Now, this morning, Morgan Stanley announced
[00:04:58] Unknown:
that they've been buying Bitcoin ETF exposures. That's right. And quite a bit of it too. Bitcoin Magazine,
[00:05:04] Unknown:
Vivec sends starts us off. Recent 13 f SEC filings have revealed several major United States institutions allocating serious money to Bitcoin via the spot ETFs, with these filings disclosing the holdings of institutional investors with over $100,000,000
[00:05:26] Unknown:
allocated. After the SEC
[00:05:30] Unknown:
approved several spot Bitcoin ETFs earlier this year, investors have eagerly awaited these disclosures. The filings reveal names like State of Wisconsin Investment Board, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, and others. Pausing to remind you that the JP Morgan and Wells Fargo Holdings are not all that impressive. But let's get into this Morgan Stanley stuff. The latest disclosure shows mammoth financial services firm, Morgan Stanley, has bought $269,900,000 worth of grayscale's GBTC. This makes Morgan Stanley one of the largest institutional holders of GBTC besides Susquehanna's $1,800,000,000 position.
With over $1,500,000,000,000 in assets under management, this allocation signals the Wall Street titan's growing conviction in Bitcoin's role in portfolios. It joins other major banks like JPMorgan, BNB Paribas and Royal Bank of Canada that have disclosed spot Bitcoin ETF purchases. Despite some firms like Vanguard opposing Bitcoin to their own detriment, the broader shift has been towards embracing Bitcoin exposure. Clients are demanding access to Bitcoin's growth prospects as both inflation hedge and an alternative asset class, Old Guard Bank steadily allocating to Bitcoin ETFs represent a monumental change. Morgan Stanley's purchase follows executives speaking positively about Bitcoin's potential.
Though still a small portion of their assets under management, it indicates legacy finance sees Bitcoin's value. As major traditional institutions warm up to Bitcoin, accessible ETFs have enabled dipping their toes in. The q one disclosures provide tangible evidence these giants are acting on growing conviction in Bitcoin's staying power. So now it's Morgan Stanley. And okay, so they're $1,500,000,000,000 in assets under management, and they've allocated $269,900,000 just to Grayscale's GBTC, which begs the question. After all of the outflows of GBTC, Morgan Stanley, instead of choosing BlackRock, chooses grayscale.
After all of these outflows and their high management costs, It seems odd that they didn't go with BlackRock or one of the other ones. I mean, there's 9, 10, 11 of these things to choose from, and they chose to go all in with grayscale. They didn't even spread it out to a couple of different ones. I don't know why they would do that, but this is what they've chosen to do. Secondly, while it's not a great big percentage of their assets under management, they were never going to do that in the first place. They're going to start small and they're probably going to keep it small. I mean, honestly, this is when you add Bitcoin into the mix of all the financial products that they have to choose from.
Bitcoin's you know the last basically the last one on the scene. So I don't expect them to do stuff to do anything like go over, you know, 1, 2%, especially in the 1st few years, if ever. If I mean, it depends on on what what we see happen with Bitcoin. But in either event, I just don't expect them to do stuff like half of their allocation automatically gets reallocated into Bitcoin. I don't think that they're you're gonna see anybody really do that, but you never know. I mean, degeneracy is everywhere. A $5,100,000,000 pension fund.
Now their CIO has joined a nonprofit organization focused on Bitcoin adoption. Who the hell are we talking about? Well, Bitcoin Magazine again. This is Nick Hoffman writing, today, the proof of Workforce Foundation, a 501c4, tax exempt nonprofit organization, has announced the addition of 2 distinguished members to its board of directors, Ajit Singh and Rafael Zaghuri. According to a press release sent to the magazine, this duo is being brought on to further strengthen the foundation's mission to promote meaningful, education based Bitcoin adoption among workforce organizations.
Ajit Singh joins the board from his current role as chief investment officer of the Houston Firefighters Relief and Retirement Fund, a $5,100,000,000 pension fund, and the first in the United States to add Bitcoin directly to its balance sheet in 2021. Singh has also served as the chief risk officer and deputy CIO for the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, managing a global pension fund with approximately 144,000 participants across 25 United Nation member organizations. As institutions continue to learn about Bitcoin, I am excited to bring my experience to the Proof of Workforce Nonprofit Board of Directors, Singh stated.
Bitcoin was created for everyday workers, with its greatest attributes discovered through meaningful learning. Proof of workforce is well equipped as a reliable resource for any organization, institution, state or city, in pursuit of a strong and healthy workforce. Rafael Zaguri, the chief investment officer and head of research at Swan Bitcoin, also joins the board. Zaguri is known for creating the Nakamoto portfolio, an open source software tool that demonstrates Bitcoin's impact on fund portfolios. His extensive background includes co founding OpenCo, a leading Brazilian Fintech, and holding executive roles at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and Merrill Lynch in New York. Quote, this dynamic addition to our board of directors positions us as a high level global resource for any pension fund, labor union, workforce organization, or government body interested in meaningful, education based Bitcoin adoption, stated Proof of Workforce founder and president, Don Bai.
Ajit and Rafa join us with an overwhelming abundance of experience in both portfolio to Rafael's creation of the first open source portfolio analytics tool for Bitcoin on the balance sheet, our board's experience in Bitcoin firsts have been broadly deepened. Proof of Workforce has already made significant strides in promoting Bitcoin adoption. The foundation played a pivotal role in helping the vocaville firefighters become the second union in the United States to purchase and hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet and help the Humboldt Bay firefighters become the 3rd union to do so. And internationally, the foundation assisted the Salvadoran Firefighters Association, in also holding Bitcoin on their balance sheet.
The foundation's board, which includes prominent Bitcoiners Joe Carlasare, Lisa Howe, Chris Alimo, and Magdalena Granowska. None of which I've never heard any of these names. So prominent Bitcoiners, I I guess this is a Bitcoin Twitter thing. I've never heard of these names, but whatever. They boast diverse expertise in law, energy, multimedia, and mining. Additionally, the foundation announced that Josh and Dan of Blue Collar Bitcoin will be stepping down from the board but will remain involved with the organization and thank them for their leadership and support while at the foundation. Proof of Workforce Foundation says it provides all services at 0 cost. More information about the organization can be found on their website here, and that is proof of workforce.org.
All one word, proof of workforce dot org. Proofofworkforce.org. Alright. So here's the here's the interesting thing that I the most interesting thing that I found in this particular, this particular story here is that first, Ajit Singh is the chief investment officer of the Houston Firefighters in Relief and Retirement Fund. Okay. So you're talking $5,100,000,000 in assets under management. Because Houston, if you've never been there, Houston's one of the largest cities that there is in the world, much less the United States. And I think pretty much is the biggest city in in Texas. Right?
People talk about Dallas, Fort Worth, but that's really 2 different 2 different cities that joined together to form this ultra massive metroplex. And I'm pretty sure that Houston kinda dwarfs all of that shit. You're just a huge amount of firefighters. And these are just firefighters. They're not cops. They're not EMT. It's not the teachers credit union. It's just people that get on red trucks and go play with fire. Just the firefighters. And you're talking $5,100,000,000. What happens when the Houston Police Officers Union gets in on this?
Credit unions for the public school teachers in Houston. I mean, you're talking about a lot of money, dude. But what was the the most fascinating thing that I saw was Arjeet Singh, this guy, this CIO, with $5,100,000,000 in assets under management, says the following. As institutions learn about Bitcoin, I'm excited to bring my experience. Bitcoin was created
[00:16:02] Unknown:
for everyday workers.
[00:16:05] Unknown:
That's an interesting statement. You're talking about a guy, 5 point you know, chief investment officer, controlling $5,100,000,000 for the firefighters in Houston, Texas, saying that Bitcoin was created for everyday workers. It's almost socialist. That's an almost socialist statement. Everyday workers. Whenever you hear the for the workers. Yeah. It's not that I don't like workers. I'm just saying that we didn't throughout history, It's kind of labor stuff has always been kind of, you know, attached to socialism and getting into, like, communism, marxism, Leninism, and all that kind of stuff. But still, we have a guy with $5,100,000,000 of assets under management saying that Bitcoin was created for everyday workers, not highfalutin smart ass mother mother truckers, just regular people, Regular guys out there. And he says that its greatest attribute is discovered through meaningful learning.
Proof of workforce is well equipped as a reliable resource for any organization, institution, state or city in pursuit of a strong and healthy workforce. His his what I'm getting at here is that he's focusing on the education side of Bitcoin, not just buy it and hold it, not just stack stats stats stats and stay humble. He's not giving us all that. He's giving basically one of the things that I look for most in high quality Bitcoiners are people that actually know what they're doing is when they say the people that say this, I don't tell people to buy Bitcoin.
I tell people to study it. I don't tell people to allocate half of their life wealth into Bitcoin on day 1 because I told them to. I tell them to go read a book about it. And I have 5 books that I will give to people so they can read about it, so they can learn about it, so they can make the decision for themselves whether or not they want to learn it. I think that this is good news. The whole socialism thing and the whole labor force and work thing aside, which just it just I'd say that just simply because it always raises the hairs on the back of my neck. But all that aside, I don't know. This is actually a pretty good signal coming out of a whole bunch of noise.
And where where's the rest of that noise? Well, let's get into it. The United States Senate passes a resolution that overturns the SEC crypto rule on banks. They threatened that it was gonna happen, and apparently it happened sometime yesterday. Turner Wright, Cointelegraph, a majority of lawmakers in the United States Senate has passed a joint resolution calling for the SEC to strike down a rule after or that affects financial institutions doing business with crypto firms. In a 60 to 38 vote, that is a huge majority, 60 to 38 vote on May 16th, United States senators passed resolution 109 and which is a resolution nullifying the SEC's staff accounting bulletin number 121.
The commission's rule requires banks to keep customers' digital assets on their balance sheet with capital maintained against them, a measure many lawmakers and industry leaders have criticized as stifling innovation. Quote, the tally, a stunning 60 yays in the senate vote, sends a pretty strong signal that both houses of congress across the political divide clearly disprove of this rule, said the Crypto Advocacy Group Blockchain Association in a post. On May 8th, before the resolution passed the United States House of Representatives, president Joe Biden said that he intended to veto the bill to, quote, protect investors in crypto asset markets and to safeguard the broader financial system.
If the US president vetoes the legislation, it will return to the United States Congress, where it will require a 2 thirds majority vote to pass again. Quote, the threat of a presidential veto denies the fact that there is growing awareness among the voting public, particularly the young people, that crypto is something our elected officials should care about, said the Blockchain Association. The vote represents an atypical bipartisan move by the United States Senate, which is split 51 to 49 in favor of Democrats. According to senator Cynthia Lummis, it was the first time this session of congress passed stand alone crypto legislation.
The White House did not immediately release a statement on the resolution passing, quote, it is clear there is overwhelming opposition to SAB 121, and I urge president Biden to reconsider his previous statement of intent to veto the resolution, said representative Mike Flood. The joint resolution could be a bellwether for a different crypto bill, the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act. The legislation clarifies the roles of the SEC, as well as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, would have in regulating digital assets. It passed out of committee in July of 2023 and is expected to be introduced into the house for a floor vote in May.
So we'll have I wonder if Biden's gonna make good on his threat to veto it. And here's see, here's the thing with the veto for all of you guys that are either living in the United States and just kinda don't care about this kind of thing or for the people that are out of the United States that, like, live in other countries, under a completely different governance scheme. This is the way it works. The sent the the it it depending on where the bill originates. A bill, depending on what kind of bill it might be, either originates in the House of Representatives or in the Senate.
Doesn't matter which one it resin it it it comes up to be in. It's not it doesn't matter where it's born. If it's born in the house of representatives and it passes through there, then it goes to the Senate. If it's born in the Senate, then it and it passes there, then it goes to the House of Representatives. No matter where it went, both of the houses have to pass the bill. Then it goes to the president's desk. The president can sign that bill, and it then it becomes law. He executes because he's the executive. It's the executive branch. He executes the bill, therefore, it becomes law.
Or the president can veto it. Now if the president vetoes it, that's not the end of the story because the people have a reply, and the reply is in the following format. It goes back to wherever it originated from, and if it passes again and goes to the house and it passes there, but it these the second time through, if 2 thirds if it's passed by 2 thirds of these houses, the senate and the the house of representatives, it cannot be vetoed. It is executed immediately without the president's say so, and that is a political that you don't want that. If you're the president, especially if you're if you're for president to be president again, you do not want the basically, what's going on is the people of the United States saying, you're wrong.
Your veto is worth squat. You don't want that go you don't want any any bill. It doesn't matter if it if it, you know, if it was like a Social Security bill or a crypto bill. It does not matter. It means that your office is weak in the face of the voice of the people of the United States because it went back to Congress, and Congress said, screw your veto. Take your veto, and you can shove it straight up your ass. It is an it's an embarrassment for the administration. So will he veto it? Because if it goes back and it passes by 2 thirds majority, then it's instant law. That means that we didn't need that dude in the first place, and the people's voice will have spoken loud and clear. Again, no president running for, vetoes overturned like that. Alright. Last up for the first half of the show, out of CoinDesk, written by Jesse Hamilton and Arian Ashraf, we have this one.
Biden order to halt China tied Bitcoin mining beside Nukebase came as United States firm just bought it. Man, that is a terrible headline. We'll explain it right now. An American Bitcoin mining company, CleanSpark, got caught up in this whole United States China political war after buying mining sites in Wyoming within close proximity of a United States nuclear missile base from mine 1, a company with Chinese ties. Now on Monday, president Joe Biden ordered a Bitcoin mining facility near Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming to stop operations, citing a threat to national security as it uses foreign source technology.
The order said that mine 1 is a majority owned by Chinese nationals and all mining equipment on the property must be removed from within a mile of the military facility in Cheyenne, which houses Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBMs. While this may not be a surprising move in and of itself, the timing stands out as mine 1 had just sold those sites to CleanSpark less than 1 week prior to the order. Again, Biden does this executive order a week after the Chinese people in question already sold the mining sites in question to a United States company. This was gonna come back to haunt. On May 9th, CleanSpark said it was buying 2 mining sites for nearly 19,000,000 in cash with a 45 day closing without naming a specific seller.
The miner said it will deploy China based Bitmain's latest generation mining machine, noting that it plans to expand the site by an additional 55 megawatts, from 75 megawatts. So they're gonna add a whole bunch more megawattage to it. A spokesman for CleanSpark said that the company was unaware of the order prior to buying the mining sites, but acknowledged the concerns in the executive order and intends to press forward with the deal. Quote, the executive order and the involvement of CFIUS, both of which we were unaware of before signing the deal, has added an unexpected layer to the closing process, but we're working through these developments toward a satisfactory closing, the spokesperson told CoinDesk in a statement.
Quote, we respect the oversight process and are dedicated to ensuring that our operations bolster national security and benefit economic development, particularly in Wyoming, a state that has been at the forefront of developing and nurturing a pro Bitcoin environment. Neither MineOne nor lawyers at Loeb and Loeb who handled the property deal for the company responded to request for comment. No. And they won't for a while anyway. The details of the $19,000,000 deal, were fully described in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission from CleanSpark. The purchase was highly dependent on the securing of massive amounts of energy required to run the business.
The larger of the two properties is about 4,000 feet from the closest edge of Warren Air Force Base. From mine 1, the sale agreement was signed by Xiaming Li, identified as the company's director. Li, who could not be reached by CoinDesk for comment, has also been president of China's Xingtai Food Company, a partner at TCC Capital, and reportedly managed almost $12,000,000,000 in assets at Cinate Insurance Company. He's got a doctorate in economics from Fordham University according to the past press releases. Lee was also briefly the president of BitOrigin Ltd, a Mine 1 investor and a company that was reported to have garnered similar scrutiny previously from Washington.
The SEC disclosed contract with CleanSpark outlined a due diligence period extending 15 days from the May 8th deal the deal was signed or the sorry. The May 8th date that the deal was signed and the purchase could be scrapped if mine 1 didn't satisfy several conditions, including government compliance matters. Quote, I have been deeply involved in national security affairs for nearly 4 decades, and I'm well aware of the potential risks of many different types of encroachment on important defense infrastructures, said Tom Wood, a CleanSpark board member who once served as or a served in senior United States Navy roles and as a military analyst in a statement.
Quote, the presence of a CCP owned data processing facility near a facility like Warren, which houses, you know, a portion of the nation's ICBM forces legitimate cause for concern as noted by the president's order. End quote. He said he's familiar with the CFIUS process calling it impartial, data driven, and non arbitrary. And he said that if the United States mining business can address the concerns in the order, I would consider this a significant win win for the United States as well as CleanSpark. This use of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, CFIUS, their powers to shut down the acquisition by owners tied to China marked the 8th such case use case of CFIUS, 7 of which involve China, according to lawyers at Hogan Lovells who specialize in this issue.
Ann Saladin and Brian Curran said in an emailed analysis that this was the first presidential prohibition relying on the expanded authority over real estate transactions granted to CFIUS and the president under the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018. So what does it all mean? Well, it sounds to me like somebody dropped the ball, but it's only a $19,000,000 deal. So that part's not surprising. What is kinda surprising, though, is the timing of this entire thing is I don't know. I got a problem with the timing. Biden waves his flag that is in the form of an executive order saying, see, I'm going to I'm going to squash mining. I'm going to kick these dirty Chinese out of the country because they're too close to the air force base. Well, that part, I I I get that part.
But the thing had already been agreed to be sold. So the only thing that he can back back into is these couple of clauses that were in the executive order saying that not only was it Chinese owned, that wasn't real you know, that was just one of the things. The other two things that he had a problem with was the fact that the electronics involved could be used for monitoring and espionage. Okay. Well, but now it's gonna be in control of the United States firm. I don't see the issue. So I think I get the feeling that what's gonna happen is this. A clean spark, now that this is all out in the wind and everybody understands what's going on now, I get the feeling that the lawyers are gonna come to an agreement with the with the executive branch of the United States government and not as much as rescind the executive order, but I think that they're going to allow this.
Because the Chinese people that own the company are gonna be gone. Because CleanSpark is a United States based company, they're going to allow anybody and everybody that needs to come in to do their inspections and check shit out. They're going to allow that to happen. They're too deep in the weeds on this deal to pull out. 1,000,000 have already been spent just on paperwork and lawyers and filing alone. Alright? They are not about to let this shit go down this shit go without a fight. So I fully expect that CleanSpark will be allowed to operate these facilities, but they will be heavily monitored.
And why anybody put these things that close to Warren Air Force Base in the first place unless they wanted to do espionage, is beyond me. But it was owned by the Chinese. Who knows what the hell is going on out there in global political macro bullshit? But we've got numbers to run. CNBC Futures and Commodities. They got West Texas Intermediate Oil up, oh, half a point. Wow. $79.65 per barrel. $2.59 per 1,000 cubic feet. Gasoline is up, 2 and 2 and 5th points? Yeah. 2 point no. 1.19%, $2.56 a gallon. All your shiny metal rocks are doing very very very well. Oh, shit. Hold on. There's some breaking news breaking. Hold on.
Gold is up 1 and a third, silver is up damn near 4 a half percent, platinum is up 2%, copper is up 3 a half percent, palladium is up over 1%. What's breaking? OpenAI dissolves team focused on long term AI risks less than 1 year after announcing it. So OpenAI doesn't want anybody saying anything bad about AI. And I also heard that Sam Bankman or not Sam. Sam Altman. Yeah. Sam Altman from OpenAI basically said that earlier this morning that we don't need universal basic income. We need universal basic compute. Does anybody even know what the hell that means?
What universal basic compute, what I'm guaranteed some some cycles on a world computer? Are you are you kidding me? In fact, world computer brings me to the to this notion that just came into my head when I said that. It will not surprise me one bit if Sam Altman and Vitalik Buterin and the whole OpenAI and Ethereum world end up coalescing into each other. We're gonna have to deal with this Ethereum security bullshit every day of our lives. It's I don't think it's ever gonna go away.
[00:35:33] Unknown:
We it it it's amazing.
[00:35:37] Unknown:
But I guarantee you that the minute that Sam Altman said, universal basic compute, I'll bet you that Vitalik Buterin heard that shit and is figuring out a way to get a hold of Sam Altman. I mean, that Sam Altman's already got Worldcoin. You know? It wouldn't surprise me if we don't see some kind of merger with the Ethereum Foundation and OpenAI. God help us. God help us. I hope that that doesn't come to pass. Alright. So, biggest winner in agricultural futures is coffee. Biggest loser today is sugar. Good. Live cattle up almost a full point as is feeder cattle. Lean hogs are unchanged.
Dow is up no, 0.14%, and everything else is in the red, but not by a whole lot. So it looks like people are waiting on stuff again. $66,910 is the market cap of Bitcoin, which brings us to a $1,320,000,000,000 market cap. You may, if you so choose, purchase 27.9 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your one Bitcoin of which there are 19,000,000 699,439.87 of. And the average fees per block has fallen again. Point 1 5 BTC taken in fees on a per block basis. And how many blocks are there, you ask? Well, there are right now a 207 blocks waiting or carrying a 160,000 unconfirmed transactions, waiting for high priority clearance at 13 satoshis per v byte. Low priority is 11, and anything under 4.3 is being purged from NPULS around the world, which are operating at a combined hash rate of 638.4 exahashes per second. It's a little high.
Okay. So have you have you gotten a podcasting 2.0 app yet? Or or are you still actually laboring through legacy podcasting apps like Apple Podcast or some other such bullshit like SoundCloud? Just don't. Don't. Don't. Even overcast does not have modern podcasting features. Alright? So if you go to podcastindex.orgforward/apps, you'll be able to find all of the new podcasting apps. And this is how the people that give me boostograms and stream me satoshis, this is how it works. If you want the Bitcoin and podcast to do well, then use a podcasting 2.0 app and fill up the wallets and stream satoshis and send me boostograms. You can even point at me and laugh in the boostograms.
I don't care. But it's the way this show remains sustained. And if you go to podcastindex.orgforward/ apps, you will find the following names for podcasting 2.0 podcast apps. Trufans, Podverse, Podcast Guru, Fountain, PeerTube, LN Beats, CurioCaster, the Split Kit, Cast O Matic, and Breeze. They will all bring chapters and transcripts and clips and the ability to send me boostograms and stream satoshis. There's all kinds of stuff you could do with podcast 2.0. And speaking of boostograms, here they are from Cheeseheads are first. This was episode 897 of Bitcoin, and Joey Del Lago with 3333 says, audio on fountain was fine. Thanks for the continuous signal.
B square b squared laser with a row of ducks. 2222 says great show and thank you. No thank you. Dubravco was 1730. Says bring from being from Wisconsin and a current Texan, suck it, Trebek. Sean Connery. Shuck it. Shuck it, Trebek. I cannot do a Sean Connery impersonation. Dobrovko with another 17/20 says, roaring kitty meows. El Salvador is putting their money where their mouths are and proving it to the world. That's awesome. Also, just ponder what kind of deadly Resident Evil movie like protection MicroStrategy has to protect their keys.
Kiss me the shivers. Holy shit. Yeah, dude. Umbrella Corporation had some pretty tight security there, man. Dubravco with 1710 says wealth of for regarding wealth of networks, per government likes a smaller point to control a thing. That is why US BTC or custodial BTC has to be protected from bad actors. Pies with a 1,000 says, thank you for being the most informative value for value podcast. Thank you, Pies. Pies with another 1,000 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Satoshi boy with 500 says, nothing. Pies with 420 says, thank you, sir. Again, I thank you again. And wartime with 333 with cheers. No. Cheers.
God's death with 237. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that is the weather
[00:40:50] Unknown:
report.
[00:40:56] Unknown:
Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use. Bit Escrow Launches Developer Playground and New Website. Quote, we're setting a new standard for escrow services, making Bitcoin transactions more secure and versatile, check out the new website developer [email protected], announced Tristan Baytich on stacker.news. Quote, this has been a very long time coming. A huge milestone accomplished. It was really hard. 2.5 years in the making, in fact. Looking forward to your feedback and seeing what amazing projects you'll build with Bit Escrow, said the developer.
[00:41:37] Unknown:
So what's new? Developer playground,
[00:41:41] Unknown:
you can experiment with Bit Escrow API in a controlled environment with support for all of the test chains. There's a new website to explore comprehensive resources including developer pages, branding guide, press kit, and much more. Developer tools are there. You can access APIs, SDKs, npm libraries, and a test suite all built from scratch using typescript. Other key features? Non custodial security, 187x faster transactions, 1 5th the cost of traditional services, and 0 paperwork. So if you're considering any kind of escrow service, you might wanna check out Bit Escrow. They have been around for a while, seem to be fairly trusted, but do your own research on that. But they have been around for quite a while. Now Ibex has they're pulling they're pulling out of the US. Let's just get to it. Ibex pay suspends services in the United States.
They are a lightning payment processor, and they're pulling out following a period of intensified regulatory scrutiny and uncertainty in the country. Users are urged to arrange for their outstanding balances to be transferred by May 31st. This is bad news. I don't like this shit. Quote, after careful consideration, it's been decided that effective 31st May 2024, all IBEX pay services in the USA, only the United States will be suspended. Thank you for your support you have given us, and we hope to serve you in the future. Yeah. Good luck. It means the United States would actually have to, you know, become sane again. Quote, this was not an easy decision to make. But after careful consideration in light of recent events, we have concluded that this is the most appropriate choice for the current circumstances.
A big thank you to all our US customers for using the IbexPay products and to Swan for being an incredible partner. We have loved working for and with you, said CEO Jose Lemus. Quote, Ibex Pay continues to operate in all other locations and our Ibex hub service will continue to operate globally, he announced. Okay. Look, Ibex I got a particular a particular warm place in my heart for the guys over at Ibex. I don't I can't remember if it was Jose, the CEO of Ibex, but if it was it was either him or one of the the higher ups at Ibex was good enough to lend their time to the beef initiative's very first beef initiative mini conference in Texas. And that was the one that I went to. I've only been to 2 Bitcoin themed things. That's BitBlock Boom in 2020.
And a couple of years later, I went to the 1st beef initiative in what was it? Kerrville? I wanna say it was Kerrville, Texas. But Ibex was there because Ibex had basically been partnering with the beef initiative to allow ranchers that are cutting their own meat and selling their own meat products. That was the one of the payment methods that a lot of them were using. So not only does shit like this affect, you know, Ibex clearly, because they're pulling out of the US, but now people in the you know, some of the vendors in the beef initiative have gotta figure this shit out. So shit rolls downhill when this kind of crap happens. Honestly, I don't think they needed to get out.
I I mean, I I understand the sentiment. I understand being fearful, but you should at least wait for a cease and desist letter from the SEC. I mean, that just because you get a letter from the SEC doesn't mean you're all going to jail. It means that they want you to stop. It's when you don't stop that you got some real issues going on, even though all that's bullshit. But be that as it may, I think this is I've never seen this before. I've never seen people in this space get this freaked out so quickly. And all this is doing is lending energy and power to the SEC because you're you're now now Department of Justice, SEC, CFTC, all these guys are now they're feeling empowered.
See, it's working. Hell, we didn't even have to send a letter to IBEX, and now they're gone. This is what happens when you tuck your tail between your legs and you don't even put up a fucking fight. What do you think is gonna happen? The bully is becoming empowered. All this is doing is empowering the SEC and the rest of the thugs over at the Fed. Well, when I mean Fed in this case, I mean the federal government, not the Federal Reserve, because they have nothing to do with federal government. They're they're about as federal as Federal Express. But the point is turning your tail and running away from the bully just empowers the bully.
This is not helping, Ibex. I mean, I love you guys, but this is not freaking helpful at all. Now turn turn the tables.
[00:47:02] Unknown:
Wasabi Wallet. Their version 2.0.7.2 was just dropped, featuring coin joins directly to another wallet.
[00:47:13] Unknown:
At least somebody's got some spine left. Wasabi Wallet is an easy to use, privacy focused, open sourced, and non custodial Bitcoin wallet. Quote, Wasabi 2.0.7.2 release is out. You can now join or coin join directly into another wallet straight into cold storage. This feature is available from your coin join settings after you upgrade. Download, verify, and install the latest version on wasabi wallet dot I o. That's wasabi wallet dot I o, announced the project. Quote, in the program, you can set another wallet in the coin join settings to which you want to coin join. In this case, anonymity score target is not considered. Once the coin join is completed, your coins will be transferred to the wallet that you specified as was explained in the release notes. So who coin joined directly into another wallet in the face of all the regulatory shit that is scaring the likes of Ibex out of the country.
And, again, I will state it that it is embarrassing as a United States citizen that no other company or country wants to do business with me simply because
[00:48:29] Unknown:
I mean, I I feel like I'm the Russian.
[00:48:33] Unknown:
I I do. I literally feel like I am hated and, like, I'm scourge of the planet, and nobody should ever talk to me simply because I'm a United States citizen. And right now, I honestly, I cannot blame them. And it makes me embarrassed. And it honestly, I wonder if I have a libel suit against the United States government for embarrassing me on the world stage like this. Probably not, but it would be interesting to consider. Be nice for a class action suit. Domus version 1.8 has been released. There's a new video player, as well as an emoji selector.
Domus is a Noster client for Apple Services. Okay. So, Domus v 1.8 delivers new emoji selector, a better video player, quote reposts, and multiple other improvements. Wait a minute. We've already had quote reposts. What are you saying? I don't know. Version 1.9 dev is underway with an up and coming highlighter feature that you can clip highlights from the web and other posts and share them to your feed. Oh, interesting. If you want to test out the latest up and coming features, make sure to grab a damas purple membership to get that access. Okay. Well, I've got I think I've got domus purple.
Do I have domus I'm pretty sure I've got domus purple.
[00:49:55] Unknown:
Let's get through this first.
[00:49:57] Unknown:
So what's new is a new emoji selector. It's now easier than ever to select emoji reactions. Just long press the reaction button to pop up the new emoji selector. Thanks Terry for implementing this. Quote reposts. Quote reposts are now listed on post. Oh, just like on the dead bird site, which is, you know, Twitter or x or whatever. Worthless. New full screen video player. Our video controls were pretty bad, before, but this has been improved in the new version. You can now seek videos, view them full screen, and airplay them onto your TV thanks, Daniel, for this feature. Improved long form style.
Long form posts now show the image and related tags. Thanks, Eric. Yeah. I'm gonna have to test that one out. Account recovery. Uh-oh. Bug fixes. Thread loading is greatly improved. We now support the latest NIP 10 specification for improved compatibility between clients. We also added an account recovery feature called first aid. You can use this to create a new contact list if for whatever reason you don't have one anymore. If you're running into issues following people, you can use this to recover your account. Okay. So, basically, recover your people you're following, which I've lost follower the people that I'm following, I've lost several names several times.
I've I've deleted my entire list at least 7 7 or 8 times. You know, early days, people. We're we're still early days. But let's see. Let's go back in here.
[00:51:40] Unknown:
What was it that I was looking at? Hold on. There was something in here that I wanted to that I really wanted to get get through. Something about something about hot.
[00:51:54] Unknown:
Oh. Oh, well. I guess I missed it. I guess my brain just farted, and you heard it. Sorry. Silent but deadly. Mini Bits version 0.1.7 beta, multiple currency units, improved UX, and improved navigation. It's a mobile e cash wallet. E cash, e cash, e cash wallet with a focus on performance and usability on Android. New native release of MiniBits Wallet is out. MiniBits now supports multiple currency units issued by Mintz. With this change, wallet adapted heavily its UX and navigation. The wallet is now organized by currency units, not by Mintz.
Last visited unit screen is remembered and shown on the very next start. This wallet, this makes the wallet ready for upcoming multi mint payments, where a payment amount could be funded by more than a single mint. Transaction screens now show related mints in header with whole UI improved along the way. Your lightning address is now one tap away from wallet screen. Transactions moved to their own button tab. Last but not least, you can grab your own custom mini bits wallet address instead of the random one, just for a small donation, though. You'll receive Zaps or any lightened payments as well as e cash encrypted over Nostra network. Grab 1, put it on your Nostra profile, then let the sats flow.
Fair to say, there are losses as well. This version had to drop support to connect to the mints using the Tor daemon. Tor library for React Native is not maintained and could not be incorporated into the build. If anybody would wants to take this, we'll put it back. So, yeah. There you go. MiniBits is now doing, multi mince, which brings me to this question. I I want to reread this sentence right here. The wallet is now organized by currency units and not by mints. The last visited unit screen is remembered and shown on the next start.
This makes wallet the wallet ready for upcoming multi mint payments where a payment amount could be funded by more than a single mint. Okay. It's that last sentence. Upcoming multi mint payments. Remember, AMP's, atomic multi payments, where, on the lightning network we were I have not I have yet to see an amp, but we talked about it a lot. And it was basically a way for if your Lightning payment was too big, that it would be broken up into several different payments, and then or or recompiled on the other side after it got through all of the lightning nodes that it needed to be routed through so that it could be recompiled on the other end. And if one of those payments missed, the entire payment was basically nullified. You wouldn't get a partial payment. That's why they called it atomic multipath payments or, yeah, a
[00:55:08] Unknown:
amps multipath. The whole point that I'm getting at here is that now we have a USD ecash, and I talked about it on Wednesday.
[00:55:21] Unknown:
Right? And if you if you're not on Noster or not on on Bitcoin Twitter, then you you may not know what I'm talking about. But the e the whole e cash thing that's come up has been going even faster than lightning development has been going. That's my opinion and I'm sticking by it. I'm I cannot keep up. And just, you know, just earlier this week or, like, at the end of last week, they talked about these people at ECash started talking about, well, now it's sort of just for lack of better term, it this isn't exactly what it is, but for lack of better term, think of stable coins as a version of e cash. Right? A USD backed e cash.
Okay. But now we just said that there's gonna be multiple currency units in e cash according to this many bits announcement. So if there's a USD version of eCash and there's a, I don't know, a Euro version of e cash and somehow there's a Mexican peso version of e cash Is it possible that we could use multiple currencies multiple e cash backed currencies multiple e cash is backed by national currencies. The their versions of it, their version of the USD, their version of the peso, their version of the euro, and like an atomic multipath payment. I mean, if if that's even remotely true, it seems like the justice department of the United States, as well as the European Union, as well as anybody else in the Western it looks to me like the minute that they figure that out, if I'm right, and I I totally reserve the right to be wrong. Right?
[00:57:13] Unknown:
Get wow. That worked out. If I'm right, and you can use multiple different versions of all these different currencies,
[00:57:25] Unknown:
I think the justice departments of the respective countries are going to lose their ever loving mind. It's gonna make them it seems to me like it has the potential for them to start screaming even louder about money laundering. So for all the guys that are developing eCash and Mintz and anything to do with that ecosystem, For the love of God, do not ever tell anybody your real name, that you have an address, that you may have a phone and a phone number, an email address. Please, for the love of god, go dark. Don't start a company.
Don't file an LLC. Don't file a c corp. I don't know how you're going to make this is where value for value really comes in. If you want the Bitcoin and podcast, then you need to donate. If you want eCash, you better donate to the developers that are not going to start a company for a revenue model. Because that's the only way that they're going to be able to continue doing their work. Because if they do start a company with a revenue model, they're gonna be like Ibex, and the first people that don't get to use the servicer will be United States citizen.
[00:58:41] Unknown:
Okay? So and I don't want any of these people going to jail because they've, a, they don't deserve it. B,
[00:58:49] Unknown:
we need these we need this. Right? I have been talking for the last week about a 1000000000 identities going dark. That's gonna need to happen. I'm maybe not a 1000000000, but, you know, let's say a couple 100000000. Just identities that just stop stop using legacy anything. They it's like they just disappear.
[00:59:12] Unknown:
I don't know where any of these people are. They just left,
[00:59:17] Unknown:
like went to Galt's Gulch. This is I think we may be at the Galt's Gulch entry point. And if anybody has ever read or seen the movies, the Anne Rand book, or seen the movies, Atlas Shrugged, you know what I'm talking about. I think we're here. Because what we're wading into is a complete destruction of anything that anybody in the legacy financial system has the capacity to understand. It's moving too fast for them. And we've got a very vicious animal backed up into a corner. And and now we're performing ninja moves at the speed of light, and it's going to piss off the the animal that's in the corner even more. It's gonna be even more scared because it's gonna be like these shadows just flicking in front of it. And at one point or another, it's just it doesn't care whose blood it draws.
It's just going to put the claws out there. And if we're not careful, it will be us that actually impact the claw and the claw not impact us because we're flying around too damn fast. The only thing that I can figure for developers to do at this point in this space is go dark. Either go dark or somehow or another whatever it is that you're developing, you better be dead sure that it can never, under any circumstances, and that includes changes in laws in the future that you cannot foresee. Get you into any kind of trouble whatsoever with the DOJ, which means you better get a hold of somebody who's really good at constitutional law in the United States.
And that kind of shit ain't exactly affordable. So I don't know what we do except to go dark. That's gonna do it for the morning roundup. Dad says jokes Marvin Gaye used to keep sheep in his vineyard He'd heard it through the grapevine Not a bad way to end the week. Not terrible. Xplbzx. Thank you for the 69 sats, and thank you for telling me that the new mic sounds good. I I appreciate that because it's like I don't I when I listen to it on playback when I was doing the testing, it definitely, in my mind, sounded better, but I'm not the one that I'm trying to please. It's you guys that are out there, including Gaygrove, that zapped me a 121 sats. I appreciate that, sir.
Consider consider what it means to go dark on development. Is it possible to go completely dark on your identity but still have an actual identity in the legacy world? The kind of one that you need because you need a bank account. You're gonna need to be able to get cash because none of these people are figuring out how to use Bitcoin yet, but still be able to competently develop the very things that are going to make the Department of Justice in the United States very, very angry. Is it what has to without going completely dark and selling everything that you own and buying an Airstream trailer and moving around the country, Short of doing that, what can people do?
Give it some thought, 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.
