Just use Nostr🧡💜

Study, learn, hodl, decouple.

#bitcoin 🧡

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap 🧡 #nostr #BTC #Bitcoin #plebchain #grownostr #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption

Better late than never… the latest Weekly Recap🧡

🧠Quote(s) of the week:

'The main reason people don’t buy Bitcoin is because they don’t understand that money printing causes inflation, that inflation is time theft, and that time theft is slow murder.

The main reason people are not buying Bitcoin is because they think they’re late:

- You can’t be late to a perfect battery

- It does not have a CEO or foundation

- We’re at less than 1% global adoption

- It’s the only asset that is decentralized' - Bitcoin for Freedom

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

Oranje🇳🇱 into the semi finals and Nostr is vibin'.

1st of July:

➡️'Bitcoin ATMs surge from 10K in Oct 2020 to over 38K globally, with continued growth expected.' -Bitcoin News

➡️More than 65% of all Bitcoin in circulation has been held for more than 1 year.

2nd of July:

The German government! Their Industrial Production YoY plunges to -6.7% (est. -4.3%) and every nuclear power plant is shut down. So what is the stupidest thing to do? Sell your Bitcoin!

German Government sends another 282 Bitcoin worth $18 million to exchanges.

German parliament member Joana Cotar says the government selling Bitcoin is “not sensible.”

Urges “holding BTC as a strategic reserve currency.”

3rd of July:

➡️ Trump sparks talks of Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.

FORBES: “That game theory would only accelerate if the United States… were the first developed country to begin accumulating bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset. This decision would fast-track the global acceptance of Bitcoin as a long-term savings instrument and a form of digital gold. In this scenario, the United States would enjoy the greatest windfall in profit among OECD countries as a result of holding first-mover advantage.”

Every nation will recognize Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.

Some will be first...like El Salvador.

➡️The largest US Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms increased their hash rate by 50% in just one month. Currently, the world's largest Bitcoin mining facility is being built in Texas by Riot Platforms.

200 MW of the 1 GW total capacity is already operational.

5th of July:

➡️MT GOX has started Bitcoin repayments to creditors.

'MtGox distributions are considered a price risk for Bitcoin and indeed they are. But it's a one-time risk and if prices must drop to absorb supply (certainly possible) that supply will be transferred to much stronger hands. Once completed, supply risk is virtually eliminated.'

➡️'Celsius is going after over 5000 people who withdrew their money from Celsius within 90 days of their bankruptcy.

Imagine withdrawing your funds from a crypto exchange that has been lying about their reserves and they declare bankruptcy days after you escaped.

And now you’re being sued.

All the more reason to withdraw sooner rather than later.' -Bitfinexed

Just don't have your corn on centralized exchanges or services like Celcius. Once again:

NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR COINS!🔑

➡️El Salvador keeps buying one Bitcoin a day, undeterred. By purchasing Bitcoin I am confident that El Salvador will become one of the fastest developing countries thanks to deflation of their currency and having Bitcoin as their new national currency.

➡️'Bitcoin's all-time longest winning streak has just ended. 427 days without a 25% drawdown. Beat the 2012 record by 63 days. Pretty incredible run we've had and well overdue for a correction.' - Charles Edwards

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

👉🏽 No news

🏦Banks:

👉🏽

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

On the 1st of July:

👉The yen's 12-year crash against the dollar continues. The Japanese currency buys half the amount of dollars it did in 2012. This is what currency collapse looks like.

On the 2nd of July:

(Picture 1)

👉WW1 and WW2 were discrete events with a defined goal. The main question is, what the actual fuck are they spending on?

And it is not only in the US, put the deficits and debt bubble on a country like Germany or Europe in general and you would have a bigger problem. Wonder why the world has a problem? Government deficits relative to GDP are out of control.

Regarding the spending problem:

'Annual US government spending reached a MASSIVE $6.5 trillion in May, just $1.1 trillion below the March 2021 record.

The government's total outlays have DOUBLED in just a decade.

To put this into perspective, this is more than the size of most world economies except the US and China.

Meanwhile, the US budget deficit hit $1.7 trillion, or 6.2% of GDP over the last 12 months.

In the past, such levels of spending have only occurred during major crises.' -TKL

Meanwhile, Chair Powell says the U.S. deficit is better fixed sooner rather than later.

'The U.S. government deficit is unsustainable, Chair Powell said in Europe, while avoiding comment on fiscal policy, as usual. The subject arose as markets brace for the possibility of the same party controlling the Executive branch and both houses of Congress after the November election, a combination that investors typically see as an open door to higher spending. "The U.S. is running a very large deficit at a time when we are at full employment," Powell said. "This is something that should be a top-level issue" for elected officials. "In the longer run we will have to do something sooner or later and sooner would be better than later," he said.'

Meanwhile, US debt increases by $109B in 1 day. Just to give you one more stat:

It took 165 years for the US to accumulate its first $1 trillion of debt. Now, the US amasses $1 trillion in debt every 150 days.

👉'US manufacturing activity fell to 48.5 points in June, the third consecutive month of contraction.

The latest reading of the ISM manufacturing PMI index missed expectations of 49.1 points.

The decline has been primarily driven by contracting employment, production, and new orders.

Overall, US manufacturing has shrunk in 19 of the last 20 months, the longest streak since the 2008 Financial Crisis.

Is the economy slowing down?'- TKL

👉Eurozone core inflation unexpectedly sticky: Headline CPI slows to +2.5% in June from 2.6% in May, in line with forecasts. However, core inflation is at 2.9% – a notch higher than forecasted. Experts had expected it to cool to 2.8%.

👉Last week I already mentioned that Javier Milei slashed Argentina's annual inflation by 95% in just seven months. Monthly inflation has fallen from 25.5% to 4.2% since he took office.

From a 1355% inflation rate to a surplus budget, his economic policies have transformed the economy.

This week Argentina's President Milei says the nation will no longer print money: We are going to the zero issuance stage....what we aim for is that the broad monetary base does not vary."

Inflation in Argentina was 64% in the first 4 months of 2024.

Who could have guessed that cutting government spending and not printing was going to reduce inflation...Who could have guessed...

Now don't get me wrong it is a great move by Milei but it's still only as good as the honesty of governments (always lying and always finding a reason to print more). That's why only money that CANNOT be debased matters. Bitcoin!

👉'With Biden 2.0 no longer an option, the Treasury has also stopped pretending and the US government jumped by $109 billion in one day - the biggest one-day increase since Oct '23 - to a record $34.831 trillion. And now the debt starts to really move again.' - Zerohedge

Funny stat:

'Since Jan 1, 2000:

2 Money Supply (USD) has increased by an average of:

- $81M PER HOUR

- $1.9B/day

- $700B/year

$17T increase in 24yrs (8,948 days)

THERE IS NO LIMIT TO HOW MUCH FIAT MONEY CENTRAL BANKS WILL CREATE.' -DenverBitcoin

On the 3rd of July:

👉'Italy's real wage misery: inflation-adjusted wages in 2023 were 4.4% lower than in 1990. Even real wages in Greece performed a little better.' -Phillip Heimberger

I wonder if this is a contributing factor to Meloni's win.

Before joining the Eurozone Greece, Italy & Co. were staying competitive by continually devaluing their currencies. Now the only avenues left are reduction of real wages or productivity growth.

👉'Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) jumps to 5.4%, the highest level in history

*The SOFR is the benchmark interest rate that measures the cost of borrowing cash overnight.' -CarlBMenger

On the 5th of July:

👉'BOTH May and April jobs report numbers were just revised lower by a combined 111,000 jobs.

The May jobs report was revised from 272,000 to 218,000 while the April jobs report was revised from 165,000 to 108,000.

This means that 10 out of the last 15 monthly jobs reports have been revised lower.

On a net basis, the US economy really only added 95,000 jobs this month.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is now at 4.1% since December 2021.

The labor market is slowing down rapidly. The US economy really only added a net 95,000 jobs in June...

...until that number is revised lower next month after all the headlines say the labor market is thriving.

The labor market is declining.' - TKL

Jobs look OK if the government just hires everyone.

41% of jobs added since 2019 were by the government burning taxpayer dollars.

On the 6th of July:

👉'That‘s the most scary chart I have seen in a while. Unfunded pension entitlements in major European countries are between 300% and 500% of GDP. Mixed with collapsing demographics it’s a recipe for debt disaster.' - Michael A. Arouet

(Picture 2)

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:

Is the Bitcoin Cycle Broken? With @therationalroot

They discuss:

- BitcoinSpiral Chart 3D & cycle alignment

- ETF flows & supply dynamics

- Liquid supply & the HODL model

- Power law, S2F, & the price multiplier effect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kcq5mevS6M

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.

#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr

#plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption

Ferguson’s Law states that any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defense will not stay great for very long. True of Hapsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire. -Nial Ferguson

Happy Sunday!

Plebs, whisky & meat!🧡

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap 🧡 #nostr #BTC #Bitcoin #plebchain #grownostr #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption

Picture 1, 2, 3, and 4.

🧠Quote(s) of the week:

'Last month, we've absorbed:

US Gov selling

German selling

Mt Gox distribution fears

Miner capitulation

Yet, Bitcoin is consolidating at $61K, just 20% below ATH.

Tops are the exact opposite, driven by FOMO and greed. This is nothing like that. We're going much higher.' - Thomas Fahrer

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

Oranje into the Quarter-Finals and Nostr is vibin'.

I want to start the Weekly Recap with a short story. I put the following post on Instagram and Nostr: https://njump.me/nevent1qqs0uzqg3nnuvsz0tycu4ydl2m4gnm245m0n3gsppxm4pttrgy8j3gqprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wdmksetjv5hxxmmdqy28wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hsygpu0hpvtplweczsl0r9szd3vzw3jgrlsfwawe65hxg9a89gq4jz4q5vzdpe

On IG (945 followers): 3 likes

On Nostr (273 followers): It has 68 likes, 14 reposts, 8 replies, and 12 zaps (people sent me small amounts of BTC)

On Nostr:

-No KYC or info required

-Instant final settlement (just press the Lightning button and boom it’s done)

-Bitcoin native

-Use any client (Damus and Primal on iOS, Amethyst on Android, or Primal on the web)

But far more important you own your own content + money!

Nostr is looking better every day.

Less doom, more hope. More you in control.

Great quote by nostr:npub1trr5r2nrpsk6xkjk5a7p6pfcryyt6yzsflwjmz6r7uj7lfkjxxtq78hdpu :

'We wouldn’t need Nostr

-If we could trust social media companies

-If we could trust admins

-If we could trust could regulators

But we can’t. That’s why we need Plan N'

Bitcoin is an uncensorable transfer of value. Nostr is an uncensorable transfer of information.

24th of June:

➡️Louisiana passes the bill to protect the right to custody of Bitcoin and ban CBDCs.

Louisiana joins Oklahoma, Montana, & Arkansas in setting a pro-Bitcoin policy blueprint for the nation.

25th of June:

➡️'The German government sold 900 Bitcoin ($54M) on June 25th.

This included 200 BTC each to Coinbase and Kraken, with the remaining going to an unknown wallet ("139Po").' - Bitcoin News

Weak hands! These 900 Bitcoins are now (hopefully) safely in the hands of ultra-hardcore maxis with diamond hands.

➡️'The current Bitcoin halving cycle is still outperforming the second halving cycle if you zoom in a lot on the bottom left of the chart. We are so early, very bullish!' - Pierre Rochard

(Picture 1)

➡️Bitcoin lightning payments app Strike launches to millions across the UK.

Watch the full video (announcement) by Jack Mallers here: https://x.com/jackmallers/status/1806423520370364640

➡️'Hedge Fund strategy:

Push down the Bitcoin price by shorting it until more and more miners need to sell because of the low price. The price goes even lower. Meanwhile, Hedge Funds buy up everything available then close their shorts and we go to $1M.'

Now you might say this is not realistic, but is it?

'When Blackrock has 500,000 Bitcoin and they've pushed the price to $1M.

Blackrock will make $1.25B in Fees. Not mining fees, the IBIT management fees.

Every. Year. Forever.' - Thomas Fahrer

➡️Bitcoin balance on exchanges continues to steadily decline.

Since the beginning of the year, about 250,000 Bitcoins have left the exchanges. Less Bitcoin on exchanges means more short-term volatility.

➡️ Morgan Stanley is set to approve Bitcoin ETFs on their wealth management platform for all clients by the end of August (at the latest), according to a senior source.

➡️Latin American digital bank Nubank is integrating the Bitcoin Lightning Network for its 100 million customers. Nubark is owned by Warren Buffett.

➡️Last week I mentioned that the German government sold roughly $425 million BTC. One of the best quotes on this topic by Alex Gladstein:

'Germany selling large amounts of Bitcoin for euros *that it can print* will go right up there with ditching nuclear power in exchange for relying on Putin for fuel as biggest self-inflicted wounds of the 21st century'

26th of June:

Bitcoin hashrate is down nearly 10% off the all-time highs that were hit at the end of April

27th of June:

➡️'BlackRock disclosed buying Bitcoin for its Global Allocation Fund in the latest SEC filing.

This is the THIRD internal BlackRock fund that has bought Bitcoin through the IBIT Bitcoin ETF' - Bitcoin Archive

'Looking at the past 5 years, Bitcoin is up 422%, mid-cap altcoins 145% and small-cap altcoins 8%. You missed 400% chasing shiny things instead of embracing Bitcoin. Choose wisely on how you store your value, allocate your time, and invest your resources.' - Gabor Gurbacs

(Picture 2)

As usual and in every cycle most people think they're a genius with impeccable timing until the rugs, dumps, scams, and 'capital rotations' hit, and then they're left holding dust.

➡️Cleanspark will acquire bitcoin miner GRIID for $155 million, with plans to expand over 400 MW in Tennessee.

Under the merger agreement, CleanSpark will purchase all GRIID common stock in an all-stock transaction, with GRIID stockholders receiving CleanSpark shares. The South is now Bitcoin miner territory, as it started in Georgia, then Mississippi, and now Tennessee. If I am right the South holds more available energy than any other region in America.

➡️Bolivia makes Bitcoin trading and payments legal again in an effort to modernize the financial system.

Ecuador is now the only country in Latin America that prohibits Bitcoin payments.

28th of June:

➡️ In the previous Weekly Recap I mentioned that Michael Dell, CEO of multi-billion dollar tech firm Dell Technologies, just dipped his toes into the Bitcoin waters, and this recent jest did make a splash.

Now last week Michael Dell posted a tweet with a poll 'The most important thing':

👉🏽AI

👉🏽Bitcoin

👉🏽Love and relationships

👉🏽None of the above.

'Is Dell coming for the throne? Is 23 times more fiat enough to overtake Saylor in Bitcoin holdings? Maybe not, but will be a fun match to watch.' - Bitcoin for Freedom

➡️Bitcoin holdings at OTC desks have seen a significant increase in the last two months.

29th of June:

➡️Bitcoin miner capitulation has reached levels comparable to December 2022 (7.6%), which marked the cycle bottom after the FTX collapse.

➡️In June, U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETF Monthly Net Inflow: $+668 million

- Price down to $61,000 from $67,500

- Blackrock adds 15,416 Bitcoin, a $1.1 billion inflow, and owns 306,979 Bitcoin

- 2nd Fidelity with $276 million inflow

- 3rd Bitwise Invest with $56 million inflow

Ergo: Added almost $700 million and price down 10%.

Also, Saylor bought $800 million more.

➡️'About 99.5% of all the Bitcoin in circulation is held in 16.5 million UTXOs that have a value of 1m sats or more. Most of the other 169 million UTXOs will likely become economically unspendable in the future assuming they aren't consolidated into larger ones relatively soon.' - Wicked

If you want to learn more on the topic please read the following article:

https://river.com/learn/bitcoins-utxo-model/#what-is-bitcoin-utxo-management

1st of July:

➡️SONY to launch Bitcoin and CrApTo exchange. According to a statement on July 1, Sony will take ownership of Amber Japan’s WhaleFin exchange, which will be renamed S.BLOX Co.

➡️Japanese company Metaplanet has acquired an additional ~20.195 BTC for ¥200 million

As of July 1st, Metaplanet now holds ~161.26 BTC, equivalent to ~9% of its market cap.

➡️'Bitcoin difficulty is expected to drop -6% on Friday, the biggest drop since Dec'22 (the FTX collapse), which marked the cycle bottom. Even the May 10 drop at -5.6% has so far marked the bottom. Again, I wouldn't be surprised if this marked another local bottom. Relief is coming for miners.' - James van Straten

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

👉🏽 No news

🏦Banks:

👉🏽 U.S. bank's unrealized losses have accumulated to $525 billion, almost 7 times bigger than during the GFC. (Picture 3)

Banks are the most highly regulated scams of our lifetime. Look at the picture and ask yourself, is this fine? FDIC report shows that the investment securities of US banks 'under water' big time, almost 7x worse than in the subprime crisis (GFC). this does not include losses on their regular loan portfolios.

One day the chicken will come home to roost.

Oh well, a little brrr can fix this...right?

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

On the 24th of June:

👉Argentina has recorded zero Inflation in its food and beverage sector for the first time in 30 years. It's a great stat, but still not great. They need 120 quarters of negative inflation to make up for the damage. Javier Milei slashed Argentina's annual inflation by 95% in just seven months.

Monthly inflation has fallen from 25.5% to 4.2% since he took office.

From a 1355% inflation rate to a surplus budget, his economic policies have transformed the economy.

As Milei said, the reforms he is making will have lasting benefits in years to come. The population will settle into stability as time goes on. At the moment 60% of Argentina’s population wants Milei to continue with these profound reforms.

Who could have guessed that cutting government spending and not printing was going to reduce inflation...Who could have guessed...

👉The best news I have heard for a long time: JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE

He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted Airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.

1 out, 2 to go

Julian Assange’s jet and recovery costs totaled $520,000 and most of it was paid in Bitcoin

Someone from the community donated 8BTC in a single anonymous donation.

👉'The Japanese Yen against the US dollar just hit a fresh 34-year low.

The USD-JPY currency pair closed on Friday slightly below 160, the level which was previously defended by Japan’s Ministry of Finance intervention.

According to government data, Japan spent a record 9.8 trillion Yen ($62 billion) to support the currency between April 26th and May 29th.

This is all despite the Bank of Japan raising rates for the 1st time in 17 years in March from -0.1% to a range of 0%-0.1%.

Overall, the Japanese currency has lost 13% of its purchasing power against the US Dollar year-to-date.' -TKL

Over the last 12.5 years, the Japanese Yen has lost a whopping 53% of its value against the US Dollar! Yikes! To make it even worse Japan's Q1 GDP was revised down to -2.9%

Fire up the printers, banzai!

(Picture 4)

'Dear Bank of Japan congratulations, your toilet paper of a currency is now the worst performing in the world, with the lira, peso, and real all stronger.' - Zerohedge

On the 25th of June:

👉'Real retail sales are on track for their 2nd consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines. US retail sales adjusting for inflation fell by 0.9% in May and are now 3.8% below their April 2021 peak.

To put this into perspective, during the 2008 Financial Crisis, this metric dropped by ~13% and by ~4% in the early 2000s recession.

The largest decline in history took place during the 2020 Pandemic with a 20% decline.

Meanwhile, consumer sentiment has decreased for a 3rd straight month to its lowest level since November 2023.' - TKL

On the 27th of June:

👉After a shallow dip, Eurozone M3 Money Supply is making new highs.

Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, has already fired up the money printer. It's only a matter of time before others follow suit.

ps.: on the 1st of July -> US M2 Money Supply turns up.

Oh please bear in mind meaning the ESG debt is ballooning in Europe as the ECB is trying to add sustainability to its mandate.

👉U.S. Treasury Liquidity is now at its worst point in AT LEAST the last 14 years, surpassing even the GFC.

On the 28th of June:

👉'US consumers have exhausted their savings:

$2.3 trillion of accumulated savings have been depleted by Americans since August 2021.

In other words, $67.6 billion of savings has been spent by US consumers PER MONTH.

As savings have declined, consumer credit card debt has spiked by $290 billion, or ~40% in 3 years.

In other words, to fight rising prices and elevated interest rates, US households have gone into debt at the fastest pace since the 2008 Financial Crisis.

Consumers are struggling.' -TKL

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:

I want to give you a great conversation/podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBqLz5hvSHA

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.

#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr

#plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption

Just my opinion:

For long term savings you wanna have larger UTXOs. So try to bundle the small amounts (UTXO's).

You can use lightning but I would use it whilst running your own node.

I doubt that since mining is such a competitive industry. I wouldn't count on it.

Try not to have too many below 1m sats.

‘About 99.5% of all the Bitcoin in circulation is held in 16.5 million UTXOs that have a value of 1m sats or more. Most of the other 169 million UTXOs will likely become economically unspendable in the future assuming they aren’t consolidated into larger ones relatively soon.’ - nostr:npub14uhkst639zvc2trx2nlsvk4yqkjp690zk89keytnzgmq2az0qmnq58ez89

People please do some UTXO management and whilst doing that buy some sats.

Bitcoin’s Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs) can be classified into different segments based on their age.

UTXO Management for Dummies:

If everyone pays you in quarters you’ll have to lug around a big heavy bag. It’ll also cost you more time to spend as you have to count quarters when paying. So ask for $20s or $100s as payment, or change your quarters into bills from time to time.

Now I can hear you say...wtf is a UTXO?

A UTXO stands for unspent transaction output. Don’t worry about those unnecessarily complicated words. Just use “UTXO” and understand the concept of what it is…

If you want to learn/study the topic: https://armantheparman.com/utxo/

Credit picture: nostr:npub14uhkst639zvc2trx2nlsvk4yqkjp690zk89keytnzgmq2az0qmnq58ez89

Study, learn, hodl, decouple.

#bitcoin 🧡

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap 🧡 #nostr #BTC #Bitcoin #plebchain #grownostr #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption

🧠Quote(s) of the week:

Ferguson’s Law states that any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defense will not stay great for very long. True of Hapsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire. -Niall Ferguson

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

I want to start the Weekly Recap with a picture & a story. Someone posted the following quote/picture: (Picture 1)

What can you learn from this? His fundamental mistake was not gaining the understanding that Bitcoin differs from, and is superior to all CrYpTO.

‘This guy probably would’ve had a cost basis below $10k had he just started regularly dollar cost averaging into Bitcoin instead of trading shitcoins. The shortcut IS saving in Bitcoin.’ — nostr:npub14uhkst639zvc2trx2nlsvk4yqkjp690zk89keytnzgmq2az0qmnq58ez89

That's because CrYpTo isn't Bitcoin. If he were saving in Bitcoin since 2017, he would be retired.

Let me explain that with data:

If he bought Bitcoin in 2017 at the pico top he’d be up 300% right now

if he bought Bitcoin in 2017 at the bottom he’d be up 8,500% right now

Yikes! Anyway let's continue:

17th of June:

➡️SEC's chief of the crypto asset enforcement division David Hirsch has left the role.

The timing of these things is almost like a script. weird, huh? Probably he will be hired by a financial corporation to lobby their 'CrYpTo' division.

➡️BlackRock CEO Larry Fink: "No matter how much we tax, cut, or reduce debt, it will not be enough. Building new infrastructure is critical." -Simply Bitcoin

When he mentions new infrastructure, what do you think he means? CBDCs? Or Bitcoin? Is that why they're buying Bitcoin?

➡️'Daily active Bitcoin addresses fell from 700K to 613K in the past month.' - Bitcoin News

19th of June:

➡️'Bitcoin illiquid supply has increased since May, suggesting investors are choosing to hodl rather than trade.' -Bitcoin News

➡️'Cleanspark announces the acquisition of five new Bitcoin mining facilities in Georgia for $25.8M.

The deal will boost Cleanspark's operational hashrate to +20 EH/s by the end of June.' -Bitcoin News

➡️'People think DCAing forever into the S&P 500 is much safer than Bitcoin.

I question that severely. ~7% of your portfolio is now Nvidia, another 30% are mega-cap US tech, and the remaining 63% are just zombie companies.' - Joe Burnett

➡️'Bitcoin mining distribution worldwide.' -Blockware (Picture 2)

20th of June:

'Bitcoin miner reserves fell to 1.90M BTC, the lowest level in the last 14 years.' - Bitcoin News

➡️International Business Times says Bitcoin mining can help achieve “net zero by 2050,"

This is a mainstream media channel, based in NY. It’s a well-researched article on Bitcoin mining, aware of contemporary research including:

👉🏽Cornell study showing bitcoin can create “a self-sustaining cycle for renewable energy expansion”

👉🏽Digital Assets Research Institute study showing Bitcoinwell-researched uses 54.5% sustainable sources

👉🏽Various studies show Bitcoin mining can turn [wasted] “Excess Energy Into Economic Value”

Source: https://www.ibtimes.com/southeast-asia-can-turn-excess-energy-economic-value-through-bitcoin-mining-expert-3734777

➡️MicroStrategy just bought $786 MILLION Bitcoin at an average cost of $65,883.

They acquired 11,931 more Bitcoin and continued their unwavering strategy of accumulating BTC. With this latest purchase, the company's total holdings now stand at approximately 226,331 Bitcoin.

➡️Winklevoss twins donated 30 Bitcoin worth +$2 Million to Donald Trump’s campaign to "put an end to the Biden Admin's war on crypto."

On one hand, my first reaction is why on earth would you give away your precious Bitcoin to any politician? But on the other hand, it's kinda a power move. Bitcoin is now political. Bitcoin is now a topic in the upcoming US election.

The reasoning is worth the read: https://x.com/tyler/status/1803872859938549920

➡️'Michael Dell, CEO of multi-billion dollar tech firm Dell Technologies, just dipped his toes into the Bitcoin waters, and this recent jest did make a splash.

It all started when Dell tweeted “Scarcity creates value.” Enter Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy’s possibly Bitcoin-obsessed executive chairman, who couldn’t resist chiming in with a hashtagged reply saying “Bitcoin is Digital Scarcity.” Dell, apparently intrigued, hit that retweet button faster than you can say “blockchain.”

The real kicker here is this: Dell later shared a meme of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, probably generated by AI or photoshopped to show the blue fuzzball munching on Bitcoin instead of his usual chocolate chip treats.

Dell Technologies is sitting comfortably with $34.6 billion in current assets (including a not-too-shabby $5.8 billion in cash), there’s no mention of Bitcoin anywhere in their recent filings. So, for now, this looks more like a playful flirtation than a full-on pursuit of Bitcoin.' - Crypto Briefing (Picture 3)

If Dell were to implement a Bitcoin treasury strategy, it would be by far the largest corporation to do so. As a founder-CEO-led company, Dell has the visionary leadership required to make such a bold move. Although we all know that cash is like a melting ice cube.

22nd of June:

➡️Bitcoin dips 3,5% as the German government sells $325 million BTC over two days. This, and that total outflows last week was $544.1 million.

24th of June:

➡️Mt. Gox will begin Bitcoin repayments starting at the beginning of July 2024.

➡️Metaplanet issues ¥1 billion in 0.5% bonds; proceeds to fund additional purchases of $BTC.

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

On the 19th of June:

👉🏽 Nvidia is now larger than:

1. GDP of every country in the world except 7

2. The entire Crypto market combined

3. 5x the market cap of Tesla

4. 6x the market cap of Walmart

5. The market cap of the entire French stock market

6. Canada's GDP plus $1.2 trillion in cash

7. 13x the market cap of AMD

8. 3x the GDP of the city of Los Angeles

9. Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway COMBINED

10. Collective net worth of the 12 richest people in the world

Nvidia's market cap is now worth more than the entire US oil and gas industry.

It's also worth more than every building in New York City COMBINED.

Since October 2023, Nvidia has added $2.3 TRILLION in market cap.

Funny stat: Nvidia insiders are selling the stock at the fastest pace in years.

Jensen Huang just sold another $31 million of NVDA. That brings his total sales this week to over $90 million. It’s his largest cluster of sales in 19 years. But bear in mind this is just a tiny fraction of his total holdings. Shit, I would sell some if I had some.

🏦Banks:

👉🏽 No news

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

Let's start this segment with a the quote:

'Ferguson’s Law states that any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defense will not stay great for very long. True of Hapsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire.' -Niall Ferguson

On the 17th of June:

👉'The US Treasury estimates net interest costs on federal debt will hit a record $890 billion in 2024.

This would be $331 billion higher than a year ago and almost double the amount from 2022.

To put this into perspective, net interest expenses will be ~3% of the ENTIRE US GDP, the highest in over 30 years and higher than World War II levels.

On a non-net basis, interest payments have already surpassed $1 trillion when annualized.

Total interest payments are set to reach as high as $1.6 trillion by the end of the year if the Fed does not cut rates.

The debt crisis is an understatement.' - TKL (Picture 4)

On the 18th of June:

👉'The Bank of England pays out so much interest on bank reserves that it impacts the UK’s fiscal situation. This is part of the overall “fiscal dominance” situation and is common to many countries, but accounting treatments differ.' - Lyn Alden

The UK but also other countries are now spending more and more tax revenue on past debt rather than on future growth.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-13/boe-reserves-enter-uk-election-debate-as-politicians-chase-cash

👉🏽 On this day the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) boots the 2024 US budget deficit estimate to 1.9$T from 1.5$T.

Classic! What is 0.4T between friends, right?

CBO's 10-year projections have historically underestimated federal debt by an average of 58% (using data from 2006-2023).

Thus, their $50 trillion deficit estimate is more than likely to actually be $75T. Oh, how I love data!

On the 19th of June:

(Picture 5)

👉'RE: The Goldman report on foreign UST demand, a picture is worth 1,000 words:

Total US Federal debt 1990-present in blue.

Total foreign holdings of USTs in green.

Foreign official (CB) holdings of USTs in red.

"Mind the Gap".' - Luke Gromen

So you might wonder who is buying all of the debt (USTs)? The answer is simple:

The Fed, US banks, US retail.

Hard to get inflation under control when the gap is being filled in with the printing press...

👉'Japan's biggest banks (Norinchukin is Japan's 5th largest bank with $840 billion in assets) today the proverbial canary stepped on a neutron bomb inside the Japanese coalmine because according to Nikkei, Norinchukin Bank "will sell more than 10 trillion yen ($63 billion) of its holdings of U.S. and European government bonds during the year ending March 2025 as it aims to stem its losses from bets on low-yield foreign bonds, a main cause of its deteriorating balance sheet, and lower the risks associated with holding foreign government bonds.' -Zerohedge

Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/music-just-stopped-banking-giant-norinchukin-liquidate-63-billion-treasuries-and-european

Is this the reason why the Japanese Yen is against the dollar hitting levels not seen since 1990?

Now just read the headlines above again and ask yourself: Is this the reason why better should a bit own Bitcoin?

If not, just read the following statement:

👉'The US debt stampede is back: federal debt jumps by $70BN in one day to a record $34.750 trillion, the biggest one-day jump since February.' - Zerohedge

👉🏽 'UK inflation has dropped to the magic level of 2.0%! The last time UK inflation was at the target of the Bank of England was three years ago.

So expect central bank policymakers to cheer their achievement but not to say a word about the fact that consumer prices rose by a staggering 21% in those three years.

For central banks, the arbitrarily chosen 12-month rate of change in prices is the only thing that counts.

The good news is that this will open the door to rate cuts, providing more liquidity for financial markets.' -Jeroen Blokland

On the 21st of June:

👉🏽'To meet reformed EU fiscal rules, Italy and France would have to go for fiscal consolidations over 2025-2028 that are larger than during the Euro Crisis (2011-2014). Spain has to do about half.

Do we properly remember the effects and political debates of €zone austerity?' - Phillip Heimberger (Picture 6)

Remember Draghi, former ECB president 'Whatever it takes'. The above is just another example of a one-size-fits-all approach that does not work.

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:

I want to give you two video's.

First video Jack Mallers: There is no second Best (BTC Prague 2024 Keynote)

“A failure to understand proof of work is a failure to understand Bitcoin.”

Jack opens his keynote with this quote by Gigi, and closes this comparison of bitcoin and altcoins: “We can't decide for you. We can educate you.” — Jack Mallers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--IFcOIEfl4&t=510s

Second video Lyn Alden: Lyn Alden is a macroeconomist and investment strategist. In this interview, they discuss the role of the Fed and central banks, fractional reserve vs free banking, how bitcoin could change these dynamics and if we should actually end the Federal Reserve System.

“We actually now have ways to do fast settlement…payments and settlements that can’t be reversed, it’s starting to show that maybe you actually don’t even need a central bank.” — Lyn Alden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdEJHUqT0XE

Only invest in Bitcoin what you can’t afford to have gradually stolen from you by the government.

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.

#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr

#plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption

Noderunners🧡💜

https://m.primal.net/IsEK.mov

🧠Quote(s) of the week:

"Bitcoin is a strange game where the only winning move is to play." -Bitstein

'I’m prepared to lose everything over Bitcoin. Everything I have is riding on this one trade. If Bitcoin fails, I will be absolutely wrecked. It will take years to recover.

I told myself a long time ago I’d rather lose everything than miss out on the most asymmetric opportunity of my lifetime.

I bought the top in 2021. I purchased the bottom in 2022. I’m still buying now.

I’m more allocated as a percentage of my portfolio to Bitcoin than I have ever been before.

This may seem irresponsible as fuck but when you see the world through the Bitcoin lens it makes much more sense. It’s perfect math.

I don’t know how many fully longed degenerate Bitcoin hodlers are out there riding this colossal Bitcoin wave with me but you’re all fucking legends in my book.' -The Bitcoin Therapist

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

9th of June:

➡️ Paraguay is earning more money selling its energy to Bitcoin miners than by selling it to Brazil.

'Paraguay to sell excess hydro-energy to miners as part of its new Economic Development strategy.

Paraguay's Itaipu hydro-power station is one of the world's biggest, yet only 20% of the generated power is used.' - Bitcoin Archive

10th of June:

➡️ If we took the official inflation rate Bitcoin would have to hit $79,000 to reach a new all-time high. But we all know the real inflation is much higher. (Picture 1)

➡️ 'Canadian public company DeFi Technologies has adopted Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. It just bought 110 BTC.' - Bitcoin Magazine

The game theory associated with putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet is starting to heat up. (more on that later on)

Funny isn't it, a 'defi' company buying Bitcoin. No NFT, no Crapyto....Bitcoin.

'The three newest public companies to announce they have added Bitcoin to their balance sheets—Defi Technologies, Semler Scientific, and Metaplanet—are all up between 30-50% over the past 5 days'

11th of June:

➡️Last week I mentioned that Metaplanet directors authorized the purchase of an additional ¥250 million of Bitcoin. Now this week Metaplanet jumped 9.88% after announcing its third Bitcoin purchase. Call it conviction.

12th of June:

➡️Trump pushing Bitcoin as a tool for US Energy is an amazing turnaround. 2024-2028 is going to be insane.

➡️World's largest bank, ICBC, says "Bitcoin retains scarcity similar to gold and solves gold's divisibility and portability issues."

➡️Taunton Firefighters become the fourth union in the US to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet.

13th of June:

➡️Supply on exchanges fell to ~939K BTC, the lowest since 2021.

➡️ERCOT recommends (Senate Committee on Business and Commerce) that Bitcoin mining be integrated as a Controllable Load Resource to ensure grid reliability.

'𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡:

ERCOT runs the power grid in Texas to make sure everyone gets electricity.

Bitcoin miners can turn off their big power using mining machines quickly, which helps ERCOT manage the grid better during high demand.

This helps ERCOT avoid blackouts, and Bitcoin miners get paid for helping and can save money on their operations.' -Explainbriefly

I love the following nostr:npub1trr5r2nrpsk6xkjk5a7p6pfcryyt6yzsflwjmz6r7uj7lfkjxxtq78hdpu quote: "Once politicians and tax authorities learn that other people are willing to *pay them* to stabilize their energy grids and expand electricity production and bootstrap green energy, it’s game over for mainstream Bitcoin mining denialism."

➡️Microstrategy is raising $500M through convertible senior notes to buy more Bitcoin. With over 214,400 BTC already, the company remains the largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder.

➡️'Australia’s largest bank just put the Bitcoin ETF [IBTC] onto its trading platform! Commonwealth Bank of Australia has 17 million customers!' - BitcoinArchive

➡️Biden’s SEC is suing Coinbase in federal court arguing it doesn’t have a right to exist as an exchange. At the same time, the Biden campaign is preparing to accept crypto donations via Coinbase. A freaking clown show!

On the other side of the aisle. Trump had a dinner with Bitcoin mining executives. A few days later... check out the 15th of June.

14th of June:

➡️MicroStrategy increased its offering by $200m for a total of $700 MILLION to buy more.

15th of June:

➡️BIDEN ADMIN TO ATTEND BITCOIN ROUNDTABLE WITH KEY CONGRESSIONAL OFFICIALS IN DC

‘The primary objective of this meeting is to strategize on how to keep "Bitcoin and blockchain innovation in the United States.”’ - Dylan LeClair

➡️T-Mobile, partly owned by the German state and which owns T-Mobile US and Magenta, the world's largest telecom company with 3 times the footprint of Verizon and double the footprint of AT&T just announced that they are currently running Bitcoin nodes and they are planning to launch into Bitcoin mining. This has to be one of the most bullish news to come out of BTC Prague.

➡️Brazil's largest bank now offers Bitcoin trading to 60M customers via its Ion app!

17th of June:

➡️'We are currently 33 days into a Bitcoin miner capitulation, with the average duration over the past five years being 41 days.

Miner addresses collectively hold a substantial treasury of 700,000 BTC, but their balance has decreased by 30,000 BTC since October.

This period marks the longest distribution phase for miners since 2017, adding to headwinds.

Despite this, the hash rate has only decreased by 12% from its peak as unprofitable miners continue to sell Bitcoin to sustain operations.' - James van Straten

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

24th of May:

👉🏽 Magnificent 7 stocks have officially exceeded $15 trillion in combined market cap for the 1st time ever.

The group's combined market cap now equals over 50% of US GDP.

In just 2 months the Magnificent 7's value has surged by a whopping $2 trillion.

The Magnificent 7 stocks have rallied by over 60% over the last 12 months compared to only a 20% gain in the other 493 S&P 500 stocks.

Combined they reflect over a record 30% of the entire S&P 500.

Big tech is getting even bigger. This is unsustainable and quite frankly it's the magnificent 1: NVIDIA.

From the movie The Big Short: 'They call him chicken little, bubble boy!'

🏦Banks:

👉🏽No news

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

Let's start this segment with the following statement by Fed Chair Powell:

'Fed Chair Powell says the Fed does not have high confidence in their forecasts.'

I mean who has...? They have like 1400 PhD at the office, but hey..what about forecasting? This is quite reassuring right? Monetary policy is just vibes right now. Ffs.

On the 9th of June

👉🏽How expensive is the US national debt and how dangerous the US debt crisis has become?

'The average interest rate on $34.6 trillion of Treasury debt is now 3.2%, the highest since 2010.

$5.9 trillion of the national debt is in Treasury Bills, with an average interest rate of 5.4%.

Meanwhile, a record $9.3 trillion of national debt is going to mature within the next 12 months.

Even if the Fed cuts rates by 1-2 times, this debt will have to be refinanced at much higher rates.

All while annualized interest payments have already surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in history.' -TKL

The federal government's current annualized interest payment expenditure stands at $1.025 trillion, slightly surpassing the annualized defense expenditure of $1.022 trillion. To make it even worse the US government expenditures as % of GDP just hit 43%, matching levels seen during the 2008 Financial Crisis. To put this into perspective, spending as a % of GDP is just 1% below World War 2 levels. Even at the peak of World War 1, US government spending as a % of GDP was 20 percentage points lower.

From my point of view the US has reached the point of no return, no matter the outcome of the upcoming US election.

It took 220 years for the U.S. to accumulate 11 trillion dollars in debt. This is the same amount of debt that the U.S. just added since 2020. Unsustainable. Why?

'In the first 8 months of Fiscal Year 2024, the US deficit hit a whopping $1.2 trillion, or $4.9 billion PER DAY.

In May alone, deficit spending was $348 billion or $11.2 billion a day, according to the CBO.

Over the last 12 months, the US deficit totaled $1.7 trillion equaling 6.2% of US GDP.

Deficit spending as a % of GDP is above all previous recessionary levels except for the 2008 Financial Crisis, the 2020 pandemic, and World War 2.

At the same time, government expenditures hit $6.5 trillion which is 23% of US GDP.

The government is spending as if we are in a recession.' Unsustainable. (Picture 2) No political party will stop this.

👉🏽Bureau of Labor Statistics, making up numbers: Remember. Jobs are everything.

'The difference between the headline jobs number and the household survey hit 4.1 million in May, the largest difference in history.

The household survey is important because workers are only counted once, even if they hold more than one job.

This data shows that over the last 6 months, 1 MILLION Americans have become unemployed.

The number of people working MULTIPLE jobs in the US hit a near-record of 8.4 MILLION in May 2024.

Many Americans are now working multiple jobs in an effort to fight inflation.' -TKL

On the 11th of June:

M2 is now positive with rates at 5.5%. And rate cuts/QE/YCC are just a matter of time. The first-rate cut is already in place by the ECB, probably the Fed will do the same in the next two/three months.

So why is M2 important, what should you take away from this all?

M2 (money supply growing) + Debt growing = liquidity growing.

More money (liquidity) means higher asset prices, but it also means more monetary inflation. Oh well, it's about to get really fun in the upcoming months. (Picture 3)

👉🏽'Sky News admits the official inflation data DOES NOT accurately reflect the HUGE increase in prices.'

Great video: https://x.com/RadarHits/status/1800089422744195337

James Lavish: 'Controlling party politicians and establishment economists will never outwardly admit it, but consumers are smart enough to know that prices have not just settled at levels far higher than just a few years ago but are *still rising*.

What they tell you is that 'inflation is easing' or 'inflation is falling'. And what they show you is a highly manipulated index that *admits* a month-to-month or year-over-year measure.

But never this, the ongoing impact to you, the consumer.' (Picture 4)

On the 12th of June:

US inflation falls to 3.3%, lower than expectations.

On the 13th of June:

Yellen: We are creating jobs at a very rapid pace.

(Picture 5)

The US lost 1.2 Million full-time jobs during the last 12 months, but government jobs are booming. Let’s celebrate this job wonder.

On the 14th of June:

Argentina's monthly inflation rate in May was the lowest since 2022, dropping for the fifth consecutive month to 4.2% amid an austerity drive by President Milei.

The annual inflation rate has fallen from 133% in December to 40%. Wonder how? Cut government spending! Don't get me wrong I am not celebrating because this is a monthly inflation number. Now add that to the inflation from the past 10 years. And compound it. It is still off the charts. But hey... baby steps. Slash spending, balance budgets, and bring down taxes so the economy has more to work with. But apparently, that’s too complicated for most governments to figure out.

On the 15th of June:

👉🏽'Institutions like the IMF keep wading into countries' debt problems by getting them into more debt.

There are hardly any countries that went from "developing" to "developed" status over the past five decades. The global monetary system is structured to keep countries dependent.' (Picture 6)

I have said it before and will say it again, especially after reading Alex Gladstein's great book & articles, the IM is just a modern-day colonizer.

👉🏽The cost of insuring against a French default (CDS price) has shot up by 16bps this week. The probability of default is priced at 3.5%. The cost of insuring France's debt against default and the risk premium investors demand to hold French government debt both reached their highest since 2022.

👉🏽 Canada bankrupted 532 companies. 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘀! Canada is a G7 nation. Cleaning the system I guess, low interest rates, and cheap money allowed a lot of businesses to get off the ground that simply were not viable long-term businesses...or is Canada the new Iceland with many millionaires with billions in debt

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:

The theme of this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF): Reclaim Democracy.

Great article by Lyn Alden:

'Implications of Open Monetary and Information Networks'

https://www.lynalden.com/open-networks/

TLDR: Open systems and you really should check out Nostr if you haven't already.

Only invest in Bitcoin what you can’t afford to have gradually stolen from you by the government.

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.

#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr

#plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption

Due to sickness no Weekly Recap this week.

Study, learn, hodl, decouple.

#bitcoin 🧡

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap 🧡 #nostr #BTC #Bitcoin #plebchain #grownostr #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption

🧠Quote(s) of the week:

'It is incredibly important to understand that Bitcoin is not a piece of software like Microsoft Word, to be endlessly tinkered with.

It is a protocol for value transfer; an immutable foundation on which to build a new monetary order.'

- Vijah Boyapati

'You do not custody the Bitcoin...you only custody the private keys that can spend the Bitcoin.' - Wicked

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

27th of May:

➡️ $290 million worth of Bitcoin has been taken off from Binance in the last few hours.

*on the 29th of May Bitcoin whale withdraws 1,195 BTC ($81.95M) from Binance.

➡️'El Salvador keeps stacking Bitcoin. As of May 27, the nation-state holds a total of ~5,763 BTC worth over $395.8 million.' - CarlBMenger

28th of May:

➡️'BlackRock has been buying Bitcoin for its fund, the Strategic Income Opportunities Portfolio' - SEC filing

➡️Bitcoin ETF Update:

Total Net Inflows +632 BTC ($43.3m)

- BlackRock +1505 BTC ($102m) (and flips GBTC!)

- Fidelity +505 BTC ($34m)

- Grayscale -1550 BTC ($105m)

BlackRock is now officially the biggest Bitcoin ETF after overtaking Grayscale.

Incredible achievement in just 4 months!

Grayscale started with OVER 600,000 BITCOIN 4 months ago.

Blackrock had 0. IBIT is killing it. IBIT, Blackrock spot Bitcoin ETF, will become the fastest ETF to reach $20b in assets, at 137 days.

Bitcoin ETFs have accumulated 250k Bitcoin (on top of Grayscale's 619k) since January.

BlackRock and Fidelity at the moment own a combined 451,338 BTC worth $30.9 billion for their spot Bitcoin ETFs. These ETFs now hold 236,938 more bitcoin than MicroStrategy.

Supply & demand people, supply & demand!

➡️Health-Tech Semlar Scientific, a company specializing in developing healthcare technology, announced today that its board has adopted Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset.

Semlar Scientific Inc. has bought $40m Bitcoin and adopted a Bitcoin Treasury Strategy. They added over $70,000,000 in market cap on the 28th of May, just by adopting Bitcoin as their primary treasury reserve asset.

The market is trying to tell the 58,000 public companies a valuable lesson...

Corporate adoption of Bitcoin is accelerating...

If you don't believe read the Semler Scientific statement below: (picture 2)

➡️Metaplanet directors authorize the purchase of an additional ¥250 million of Bitcoin.

➡️The Nigerian Naira is now worth less than one Satoshi.

➡️Someone just moved $3 billion worth of Bitcoin with $2.8 fees.

$2.8 FEES FOR $3 BILLION TRANSFER. Now try this with the current system, banks can't relate I guess.

➡️El Salvador President, Nayib Bukele, met with Cathie Wood to discuss Bitcoin, new capital markets, and innovation opportunities.

CATHIE WOOD: “President Bukele's determination to turn El Salvador into an oasis for the bitcoin and AI communities - two of the biggest economic and technology revolutions in history - is the reason I believe that its real GDP could scale 10-fold during the next five years.”

The funny part about this statement and the meeting. Five days later she ditches the Ethereum ETF to focus on Bitcoin. Are you paying attention anon?

➡️FINBOLD: “Perhaps the most interesting among the top stocks owned by Soros through the first quarter of 2024 is the shares of MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), valued at approximately $135 million.”

29th of May:

➡️Jack Dorsey-backed Bitcoin mining company Ocean Mining has adopted El Salvador as its global headquarters.

➡️'Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms acquires a 9.25% stake in Bitfarms, becoming a major shareholder, after Bitfarms rejected Riot's $950M acquisition offer.' - Bitcoin News

➡️'Mastercard just launched Crypto Credential, which allows you to send Bitcoin to any customer at an exchange with a simple username, instead of a wallet address.' - Bitcoin Archive

I wouldn't use it because of KYC and still not your keys, but great news regarding the institutional adoption of Bitcoin.

30th of May:

➡️In case you missed it, Alex de Vries (Digiconomist), the most quoted source in the Whitehouse's OSTP 2022 report on crypto-mining and historically the most referenced source for mainstream news reporting on Bitcoin and energy, had his methodologies fundamentally discredited in March this year in a peer-reviewed paper by Sai & Vranken:

https://twitter.com/DSBatten/status/1796232365544468899

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2096720923000441?via%3Dihub

Misleading journalism needs to continue to be punished by social ossification. 'De Vries was the SBF of the press'. The truth will always prevail!

➡️A record $2 billion worth of Bitcoin taken off from Kraken yesterday. Bitcoin exchange reserves at the lowest ever.

31st of May:

➡️'Legendary cryptographer Ralph Merkle on the power of Bitcoin at $500, exactly 8 years ago.

"It is a new form of life. It is unstoppable." - Pete Rizzo

➡️'Bitcoin firm Unchained partners with the University of Austin to create a $5M endowment fund entirely in Bitcoin. The university plans to hold the Bitcoin for at least five years.' - Bitcoin News

1st of June:

➡️Biden vetos the bill that would revoke the SEC’s SAB 121, maintaining the ban on large financial institutions from taking custody of Bitcoin.

'The President has decided to reject a bill, passed by the majority of US lawmakers in both the House and Senate. Does he think he represents the people’s interest better than those elected to make laws?' - Hunger Horsley

2nd of June:

➡️'Donald Trump to accept Bitcoin Lightning payments for campaign donations.'

This wasn't on my Bitcoin 2024 bingo card, but just my two sats...I wouldn't pay one sat to a politician.

But do you think, that accepting Bitcoin Lightning payments, will change the landscape of politician campaign funding?

➡️Marquette University professor emeritus David Krause describes the Wisconsin pension system's $160 million purchase into a Bitcoin ETF and why the small purchase matters.

Video: https://twitter.com/ts_hodl/status/1797364548388753664

'Worth watching this video, someone always has to go first and someone’s going next. 0.1% of Wisconsin state pension = $160 million. Fully funded pension, trial balloon. Other state pensions on notice.' -Parker Lewis

Do you still think Bitcoin is a Ponzi, now that one of the largest pensions, a well-run one that is fully funded, is allocating to Bitcoin?

3rd of June:

➡️'Australia is set to launch its first spot Bitcoin ETF on June the 4th!

MonochromeAsset's ETF, trading as IBTC on CBOE, will offer regulated Bitcoin exposure with a 0.98% management fee.' - BTCTimes

I hope people 'Down Under' will stick to self-custody. Why...well just look at the next example:

➡️'Japanese crypto exchange DMM confirms 4,502.9 BTC ($305M) hack.

They suspended crypto withdrawals and limited buying activity to "prevent further losses," and warned of delays in withdrawing Japanese yen.

DMM says it will reimburse affected users.' - Bitcoin News

Not your keys, not your coins people! Act accordingly.

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

24th of May:

👉🏽Distinction with a difference...

'S&P 500 Total Return in USD terms since Jan 1, 2020: Up 75%.

S&P 500 Total Return in gold terms since Jan 1, 2020: Up 15%.

S&P 500 Total Return in BTC terms since Jan 1, 2020: Down 81%.

"US with Argentine characteristics." Argentine stocks have been up huge...in peso terms.' - Luke Gromen (Picture 3)

🏦Banks:

👉🏽 Unrealized losses in the U.S. Banking System increased to $517 billion in Q1. (Picture 4)

FDIC warns that 63 Lenders are on the brink of insolvency due to banks sitting on $517 billion in unrealized losses.

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

On the 27th of May:

👉🏽'China creates $47.5 Billion fund to boost domestic semi-conductor industry after USA stopped selling advanced chips to China.' - Radar

👉🏽 'The Congression Budget Office forecasts that the US budget deficit will not fall below 5% of GDP in the next decade.' - CBO (picture 5)

On the 30th of May:

👉🏽A record $9.3 trillion in government bonds will mature and need refinancing within the next 12 months.

Did someone say debt spiral?

The US needs cheap refinancing, not with the current high rates.(5%) So cutting rates, yes. Print more money, yes. hello inflation (eventually), yes! Who is buying the new debt tho?

👉🏽'In today's post, the authors note that the narratives about declining dollar shares in official reserves, and increasing roles for gold holdings by central banks, inappropriately generalize the actions of a small group of countries.' -New York Fed

The Fed now admits some countries are moving to gold. But says it’s a small group.

The decline in the dollar preferences of a small group of countries (notably China, India, Russia, and Turkey)...'

These four countries make up:

37% of world population

25% of global GDP

19% of global exports

The Fed now admits some countries are moving to gold. But says it’s a small group.

So 37.5% of the world is moving away from dollars towards gold.

A small group of large countries will return to gold (India, China, maybe Russia) and a large group of small countries (like El Salvador) will move to the Bitcoin standard.

Now imagine what will happen when central banks start buying Bitcoin like gold. In almost every category Bitcoin is better than gold.

'So when we are told gold has a value of $15.76 trillion (https://companiesmarketcap.com/assets-by-market-cap/…), where does that number come from? How can all the gold ever mined over the past 10,000 plus years be accounted for? It can't. It's all nonsense in my opinion Bitcoin fixes this. It fixes the world of value. Every single satoshi ever mined is accounted for and the entire global supply is publically audited and made available for any human being to see and verify every 10 minutes, forever.

Now I ask you. Which seems more real to you and which seems bogus to you? I know. Bitcoin' - Oliver L. Velez

Anyway more on the Fed...

👉🏽FED'S WILLIAMS: 'MONETARY POLICY IS CLEARLY WORKING HOW THE FED WANTS IT TO WORK.'

Lemme quote market strategist Sven Henrich:

'Oh yea, it's clearly working how the Fed wants it to work.

The rich are richer than ever.

The middle class keeps shrinking.

Housing unaffordable for most.

And the poor and vulnerable are stuck with permanently higher prices.

Mission accomplished.

Bravo.'

Just to give you some context on the 'housing unaffordable for the most', and I do focus now only on the US housing market.

The median price of a new home is at $433.500 and remains near record highs. The number of new single-family houses for sale has surged to 480,000 in April, the highest since the 2008 Financial Crisis. This came after new home sales were down 7.7% year-over-year last month, the largest drop in 13 months. Excluding the 2008-2009 housing crisis this is by far the largest supply of new homes in US history.

The US economy now has:

1) Slowing GPD growth at 1.3% in Q1. (stagflation?)

2) Stated above, median home prices at all-time high of $434K.

3) 37 months of inflation above 3%.

4) $2 trillion deficits.

5) $34.6 trillion NATIONAL DEBT - record

6) 600k full-time jobs lost in the last 12 months.

On the 31st of May:

👉🏽'Eurozone's inflation rose faster than expected in May ahead of ECB meeting. Overall CPI accelerated to 2.6% in May YoY, up from April's 2.4%. Even worse: downtrend in core inflation reversed w/core CPI ticked up to 2.9% in May from 2.7% in April. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast that consumer prices would rise to 2.5% and predicted that core inflation would be stable.' Holger Zschaepitz

On the 2nd of June:

👉🏽S&P downgrades France’s credit score as the country’s general government debt will increase to about 112% of GDP by 2027 from around 109% in 2023.

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:

The theme of this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF): Reclaim Democracy.

What is the Oslo Freedom Forum? The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is an international human rights conference series hosted and produced by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF). Bringing together the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, journalists, artists, tech entrepreneurs, and world leaders, we aim to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe.

Believe me...it's worth your time. Below you will find the link to their livestream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMtqqP4X9Os&t=1239sOnly invest in Bitcoin what you can’t afford to have gradually stolen from you by the government.

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.

#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr

#plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption

🧠Quote(s) of the week:

'2024 is the year of Bitcoin mass adoption

- Bitcoin ETFs

- Bitcoin balance sheets

- Bitcoin nation state DCA

- Bitcoin elections' - Tuur Demeester

'Return of a version of "The Delirium of the Milliards":

1924 Berlin was expensive for Germans but very cheap for Americans with their (gold-backed) USDs.

2024 America is expensive for Americans but very cheap for Bitcoiners.' - Luke Gromen

'The US ETFs hold 840,000 Bitcoin ($58B). They have bought this in 4.5 months. During this period the Halving happened, Trump supported it, Yen is collapsing, and M2 has started to increase. If you don’t hold any BTC now I don’t know what to tell you.' -Bitcoin for Freedom

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

21st of May:

➡️'El Salvador crosses $400 million in Bitcoin holdings.

They are now $81 million in profit' - Bitcoin Magazine

The first governments that adopt Bitcoin as a treasury asset will have significant strategic advantages, and El Salvador is leading the pack!

➡️On this day whales accumulated $6.3 Billion worth of Bitcoin.

➡️Bitcoin ETFs bought 3520 BTC ($235m) yesterday (20th of May)

That's 8x ALL the Bitcoin mined. Supply & Demand people.

22nd of May:

➡️'Since adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet, Metaplanet has become the best-performing stock in Japan this week, being halted at a maximum daily gain of +50%for two days in a row.' - Bitcoin News

➡️450 Bitcoin ($31M) is mined every day. ETFs are buying between $200M and $300M of BTC every day. Are you paying attention anon?

For example, Jane Street Group manages 380 Billion Dollars and has 0.1% ($500m) sitting in Bitcoin ETFs. This ONE FIRM could send us to 100k Bitcoin by allocating 2%.

'The US Bitcoin ETFs now hold 850k BTC.

They have added 230k BTC since January 10th.

Only 105k BTC has been mined since then.

That means these ETFs ALONE have taken ALL freshly minted supply off the table, PLUS another 125k coins. They are on average eating double the new supply, every day.' - Hodlonaut

(Picture 1)

➡️The BlackRock Bitcoin ETF sees the biggest inflow in nearly two months with $291 million coming in today.

➡️Jack Dorsey on why Block got into making Bitcoin mining hardware:

"The reason why we want to build this is because it secures the network. It's not just about mining new Bitcoin. It's about validating transactions. And if we have a secure network, we have secure money. And secure money is something that people trust. Businesses can trust. People can trust."

➡️'BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF officially overtakes Grayscale for the most assets under management.' -Bitcoin Archive

➡️'WisdomTree got FCA approval to list Bitcoin-backed ETPs for professionals on the London Stock Exchange. Launch expected May 28th.' - Bitcoin News

23rd of May:

➡️'Global bank Standard Chartered expects Bitcoin to break new all-time highs by this weekend and $150,000 price target by the end of this year.' - Bitcoin Archive

➡️'Xapo Bank becomes the first fully licensed bank to integrate the Bitcoin Lightning Network for deposits.' - Bitcoin Archive

➡️'In the past month, only ~6% of Bitcoin has moved—a level of HODLing behavior only surpassed once in October 2023, when Bitcoin was $27,000.

Despite being up 160% over the past year, hardly any coins are changing hands.' -Unchained

➡️Moody’s upgrades El Salvador's credit rating to Caa1 from Caa3. The outlook remains stable. This upgrade reflects a significant decrease in credit risks and a lower likelihood of liquidity stress. Other countries will follow the same path, for example Argentina. More on that below, see the news on the 27th of May.

➡️Bitcoin Whales have been on a WILD run.

+15k BTC in one week. (Picture 2)

Bitcoin's price is finding support from two key factors:

Long-term holders are not selling their Bitcoin as much as they were in March.

New whales are actively buying around $60K, suggesting this price point is a key support level. On top of that, we had a massive Bitcoin ETF inflow last week.

➡️"The easier it becomes to buy Bitcoin, the greater potential for financial disaster," says UK magazine The Spectator. (Picture 3+4)

Yes, that's the whole point! This reminds me of an anti-electricity cartoon from the past century: Same vibe, different day!

I am 100% sure they will blame the next financial disaster on Bitcoin / CrYpTo.

24th of May:

➡️Kenya and Marathon Digital Holdings signed a historic deal for monetizing underutilized energy across Kenya and jointly developing technology projects.

'A lot of energy is stranded and thus wasted.

It’s becoming more and more apparent to smart policymakers to make use of Bitcoin mining to put it to economic use.

Things like AI, hydrogen production, and so forth can’t go to all the remote bandwidth-constrained sites as well.' - Lyn Alden

'Bitcoin mining's future entails

- The development of more renewable energy that otherwise would have been unprofitable to monetize (geothermal in Kenya's case)

- Economically benefitting entire nation-state

- More geographic diversity of hashrate' -Daniel Batten

Bitcoin Mining is still an undervalued real-world use case of Bitcoin. It allows any excess energy anywhere to be used to produce a top-tier, high-demand, global digital asset that can be sold 24/7/365 anywhere on Earth.

➡️Bitcoin transaction fees are at their lowest since early November 2023, averaging $2.77.

➡️'BlackRock and Fidelity now own a combined 445,429 BTC worth $30.6 billion for their spot Bitcoin ETFs. These ETFs hold 231,029 more bitcoin than MicroStrategy.' - Bitcoin Magazine

➡️'This week an anon donated 3 Bitcoin to the Peer-to-Peer Rights Fund in support of the Samourai Wallet defense fund.' -Bitcoin News

Every contribution, big or small, makes a difference.

Donate here: http://p2prights.org

25th of May:

➡️4 years ago 1 BTC = $8,904

Today 1 BTC = $69,032

That's a 675% increase or 67% CAGR

➡️'Bitcoin hashrate moving average fell over 7% after hitting a peak of 633 Eh/s in the days following the halving.

However, there has been a steep rebound in hashrate moving average this week, rising from 586 Eh/s to 612 Eh/s.' - Bitcoin News

So a large increase in hashrate joins the Bitcoin network with the next difficulty adjustment anticipated to be between +5-11%. Ergo the hashrate is already exponentially rebounding post-halving. (Picture 7)

➡️ Donald Trump says "I will ensure that the future of crypto and Bitcoin will be made in the USA…I will support the right to self-custody to the nation's 50 million crypto holders."

He also mentioned commuting Ross Ulbricht's sentence. "He's already served 11 years. We're going to get him home."

First of all, stop conflating Bitcoin with snake oil. Yes, great news a major US presidential candidate committed to protecting the right to self custody.

May I remind everyone that Trump’s DOJ indicted Julian Assange under the Espionage Act, he didn’t free Ross when he was President, & he didn’t pardon Snowden.

Prove? For example Ross's case: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-considers-clemency-for-ross-ulbricht-silk-road-kingpin-convicted-of-drug-and-money-laundering-charges

Bitcoin, he was calling it 'A scam against the dollar': https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57392734.amp

'US BITCOIN ELECTION AGENDA

- Buy 2 million Bitcoin for US national reserves

- Guarantee Bitcoin self-custody rights

- Ban Central Bank Digital Currency

- Free Ross Ulbricht

- Pardon Ed Snowden

- Drop charges against Julian Assange' -Bitcoin Archive

It's crazy to consider how far we've come. Bitcoin is a major topic in the US election. Bitcoin is on the ballot in an increasing number of countries, even the most powerful ones. Other G20 countries have no choice but to follow & discuss Bitcoin. Bitcoin game theory has just started playing out. Gradually then suddenly every country.

'Satoshi was an absolute genius for making the halving year the same as the US presidential election.

I don’t believe it was a coincidence, the man understood incentives!' -BitVolt (Nico)

25th of May:

➡️Spot Bitcoin ETFs See Record Inflows for 9 Consecutive Days

Since the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in January, these investment products have seen total net inflows of over $13.43 billion.

➡️Crazy stat: If you bought Bitcoin with your $1,200 stimulus check in 2020 you'd now have over $12,390. That's quite the return on investment innit? But most people didn't. Now compare that stat with the devaluation (purchasing power) of the US dollar over the same period.

27th of May:

➡️Argentina's Securities Commission met El Salvador's Digital Assets Commission to discuss its experience with Bitcoin as a legal tender.

“We want to strengthen ties with El Salvador and consider a collaboration agreement with them,” said CNV president Roberto E. Silva.

➡️'We have current sources within Greenpeace who have been leaking information to us about the 'change the code' campaign because while they believe in

Greenpeace's mission, they are

* not supportive of greenpeaceusa's campaign

* question the ethics of taking money from Ripple's executive chair Chris Larson

* think it is damaging the Greenpeace brand

* think either that there are bigger issues to fight, or that Bitcoin is a positive force for counteracting climate change. -Daniel Batten

Read the full thread here: https://twitter.com/DSBatten/status/1795128278493040830

TLDR: Eventually all will, also Greenpeace, bend the knee to the truth.

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

24th of May:

👉🏽Nvidia stock, $NVDA, has officially joined the exclusive club of 250,000%+ in all-time returns.

$10,000 invested in Nvidia in 1999 is worth $25.3 million today.

👉🏽'The Group of Seven (G7) Finance Chiefs met in Northern Italy last week. The Discussion Agenda includes:

- Ukraine & The Handling of Russian Financial Assets

- The Role of AI in Finance

- The Global Economic Outlook

- Health Crisis Initiatives

- and International Taxation Policies

Yet, one important topic seems to have been overlooked and is not on the agenda. Again. Global Debt!' -James Lavish

More on the Debt part below segment Marco/Geopolitics.

🏦Banks:

👉🏽 No news

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

On the 20th of May:

👉🏽'Further evidence that inflation is accelerating: The McChicken at McDonald’s is up 201% between 2019 and 2024.

The average price increase across the 5 following items is 141%:

- Medium French Fries

- McChicken

- Big Mac

- 10 McNuggets

- Cheeseburgers

But hey CPI says we only have like 2-3% inflation right? As it turns out money printing is a huge factor.

My advice, stop eating garbage.

👉🏽A million seconds ago was May 8th

A billion seconds ago was 1993

A trillion seconds ago was 30,000 B.C.

The US national debt is now rising by $1 Trillion every 100 days

Now time is scarce, just like Bitcoin. Money's value changes every day. It's getting worse every day as well.

👉🏽Please check the following tweet by Craig Chapiro. The cliff is imminent, not because we as a Bitcoin community are saying it, no because the current financial system is saying it. Even the best-case scenarios (low likelihood compared to mean/worst-case scenarios) proposed by the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) put debt to GDP ratios at +115% by 2025.

That is if everything going perfectly. So no pandemics, no wars, no problems, nonnada niente. (Never gonna happen). Once debt/GDP exceeds a certain threshold (we already passed that), a self-sustaining debt spiral is created. Just like the Dutch Empire and the UK Empire witnessed once before.

https://twitter.com/ces921/status/1793296740050726972

Now I am not saying the US (empire) will fall shortly. I am just saying, 'that America's debt has risen from $10 trillion to ~$35 trillion in the time since Bitcoin was created.

That's an increase of 250% since Satoshi launched the code to the world.

More US debt was issued in the last few years than in America's first few hundred years.'

We have seen that pattern before...

Again, the cliff is imminent.

On the 22nd of May:

US Senator Cynthia Lummis says "We are building a pro-crypto army in Congress."

Congressman says CBDCs "threaten to destroy the American way of life. Unlike decentralized digital assets such as Bitcoin. The political landscape has changed in the US.

The next US election will be the first Bitcoin / CrYpTo election in history. More on that further on...

Eventually, Bitcoin is a Trojan Horse, Bitcoin is inevitable and the true path to (financial and maybe also privacy) freedom. Politicians will see the light, maybe at first only because they need votes (again more on that down below, the Trump part) but in the end, they will see the light.

On the 23rd of May:

👉🏽CHINA: Gold Trading Explodes 400% Higher!

- China's central bank bought more than 225 tonnes of gold in 2023.

- Gold price broke a 15-year record recently.

👉🏽'The US Composite PMI, reflecting business sentiment across the Manufacturing and Services sector, spiked to 54.4 in May, the highest level in over two years!' -Jeroen Blokland

👉🏽'30-year US Treasuries are on track for their 3rd worst annual return since 1919.

30-year Treasuries have declined by ~15% year to date after a slight gain of ~2% in 2023.

Over the last 105 years, only 2009 and 2022 have been worse for long-term treasuries.

Meanwhile, $TLT, a popular bond-tracking ETF has plummeted by 40% over the last 4 years.

Year to date, $TLT has fallen by another 6% as 4 interest rate cuts have been priced out from market forecasts. No one wants bonds anymore.' -TKL

On the 24th of May:

👉🏽'US national debt hit a new record of $34.6 trillion in April, up by $1.6 trillion since September 2023.

Total US debt has increased by 47% or $11 TRILLION in just 4 years.

In other words, there is now $267,000 of Federal debt for every US taxpayer.

US debt is on track to DOUBLE in just 8 years, rising from $20 trillion in 2017 to $40 trillion in 2025 if the current pace continues.

Meanwhile, annual interest expense could reach $1.6 trillion by the end of the year if the Fed leaves rates unchanged.' -TKL

For the first time in the history of the United States, interest payments will likely overtake defense spending in 2024. Yikes!

More US data:

👉🏽'New Fed data highlights consumer weakness:

52% of US adults could not handle a surprise bill of at least $2,000 using savings in 2023, the highest share since 2020.

42% of these people could not even cover a $1,000 surprise expense, according to a Fed survey.

Shockingly, almost 1 in 5 respondents could only afford an expense of below $100.

17% of surveyed Americans also said they did not pay all their bills in full in the month before the survey.

Meanwhile, 28% of adults financially struggled last year, the largest share in 7 years.' -TKL

On the 25th of May

👉🏽'Canada is having lots of fun with money printing.

The trend from 2000 - 2020 was a 6.89% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

The trend from 2000 - 2024 is 8.18% CAGR. Your dollars are losing purchasing power faster lately.

Your Canadian dollars are now losing purchasing power 18.73% per year faster than 2000-2020.' - Tom Karadza

CAD is like a melting ice cube! And may I remind you that Canada is a G7 nation!

👉🏽 'The price for unlimited money printing by governments.' - CarlBMenger

(Picture 5) The debt problem is exponential, not linear.

On the 27th of May

👉🏽European Central Bank to cut interest rates in June.

“What we see right now is enough to remove the maximum level of restriction, equal to 4%.

Data over the coming months will help us determine the pace of further easing,” says ECB chief economist Philip Lane.

As mentioned before in my Weekly Recap I think we will see a rate cut by the Fed in Q4 / after the elections. Meanwhile is doing Yield Curve Control with treasury buybacks. Rate cuts are imminent. Ergo, more liquidity, more printing. Prices go up.

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:

Great interview and worth your time/watching.

'Highly recommend this podcast, specifically to hear Saylor's views on changes to bitcoin, how important extreme conservatism is + how much thought should go into several orders of the derivative consequences & impact for all stakeholders, critical to benefit/risk calculus' -Parker Lewis

WBD817 - Bitcoin is Forever Money with Michael Saylor. They discuss:

- Balancing economics, ethics, & engineering

- Sound money, ossification, & sovereignty

- Funding Bitcoin development

- Bitcoin winning the political war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwmyaxpJwocOnly invest in Bitcoin what you can’t afford to have gradually stolen from you by the government.

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.

#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr

#plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption

🧠Quote(s) of the week:

‘Nearly 1,000 firms have invested since January's launch. Owning $3.5 billion worth of Bitcoin ETFs as of last Thursday. By the May 15 filing deadline, we could see a total AUM nearing $5 billion.’

First, they said it's only crazy internet people who own Bitcoin or it is for criminals.

Then they said it's only retail that owns Bitcoin.

Now they see over 500 massive wealth firms, banks, & institutional investors bought Bitcoin in the first 2.5 months of ETFs. A majority (52%) of the US's largest hedge funds are betting on Bitcoin.

I wonder what they will say next...

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

This is an extended Weekly Recap version (6th of May - 20th of May). I hope you enjoy it.

6th of May:

➡️'South Korea's new government will vote to allow spot Bitcoin ETFs in June.' - Bitcoin Archive

➡️$130B wealth manager Hightower just reported owning $68m of Bitcoin through 6 ETFs.

➡️'The US government holds ~212,847 Bitcoin as of April 2024' - Bitcoin News

MicroStrategy, after their latest purchase, now owns more Bitcoin than any country in the world.

7th of May:

➡️Bitcoin exchange inflow hits lowest level since 2015 at 20K BTC. You might wonder if this all has to do with the offramps closing or if people just have 'diamond' hands.

➡️'$429 BILLION asset manager Susquehanna International just reported owning $831M Bitcoin across 10 ETFs! The biggest ownership of Bitcoin ETFs reported to date.'- Thomas Fahrer

Their total ownership is ~$1.2 BILLION, including +$1b in GBTC.

➡️Arkham identified a new US government wallet containing 3,940 Bitcoin ($251M) seized from drug dealer Banmeet Singh in a January hearing.

8th of May:

➡️Argentina to mine Bitcoin using stranded gas with 1,200 Bitcoin mining machines - Forbes

Bitcoin miner Genesis Digital Assets Limited partners with Argentina's YPF Luz to build a Bitcoin mining facility in Neuquén powered by wasted gas from oil fields.

This is the first of its kind in Argentina and turns a pollutant into a valuable energy source.

➡️New research backs up every single major claim of the energy & environmental benefits of Bitcoin

Bitcoin for methane mitigation:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4810964

Bitcoin for renewable buildout:

https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/14/3/35

Bitcoin for grid balancing

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4634256

➡️'Hong Kong firm Monolith Management, founded by ex-Sequoia China exec Cao Xi, revealed a $24M investment in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF IBIT. This is their 5th largest holding, exceeding their Meta stake by double.' - Bitcoin News

➡️ Bankrupt FTX to pay customers $15 billion in recovered cash - CNBC

'FTX is not paying customers in "FULL" as reported.

Bitcoin is up almost 4x since hitting a $15.5K low in the bear market and is now just above $62,000.

FTX will compensate customers in US dollars at prices set during the bear market, not like-for-like in assets stolen.' -Radar

9th of May:

➡️The US House has voted to repeal the SEC ruling that blocks financial institutions (trusted custodians) from holding Bitcoin for their customers.

➡️Biden Admin would veto proposed legislation that would allow highly regulated financial firms to custody. Joe is completely out of touch and is driving entrepreneurs out of the US.

Congressman Hill criticizes Biden for a veto threat that will effectively ban banks from holding Bitcoin for customers. “Holding reserves against the assets held in custody is NOT standard financial services practice.” "The Biden Admin's SAB 121 is misguided and should be nullified."

➡️European regulator considers allowing Bitcoin exposure to be added to the $12 TRILLION market for UCITS. UCITS are almost 2x bigger than US ETFs!

➡️$570B insurance giant MassMutual reported owning Bitcoin through the Grayscale ETF.

MassMutual bought $100m Bitcoin for its balance sheet in 2021 and was founded in 1851.

10th of May:

➡️Boston-based Bracebridge Capital owns over $307 million worth of Ark’s Bitcoin ETF. In total, they owe $433m in Bitcoin through ETFs. ($100m Blackrock, $26m Grayscale). They went wild basically.

➡️PNC Bank has $10m in Bitcoin ETF exposure across 6 ETFs, per SEC filings. PNC is the 8th biggest bank in the US.

12th of May:

➡️An old Bitcoin wallet from 2011 just moved $30 Million worth of BTC. The owner of the wallet hodled all the way from $2 to $61000.

➡️Over 2,000 investors from mainland China attended the Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong. Total attendance: 5,500 - South China Morning Post.

13th of May:

➡️Japanese public company Metaplanet released a white paper on their Bitcoin corporate treasury strategy.

➡️Switzerland's biggest bank UBS owns the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF - SEC filing

➡️El Salvador released a new website that tracks their Bitcoin Treasury. This allows users to view the Salvadoran government's BTC transactions and holdings in real time, enhancing transparency and enabling public auditing of these investments.

El Salvador is buying 1 BTC every day. DCA strategy is the way.

Find El Salvador's bitcoin treasury information here: https://bitcoin.gob.sv/nl/

Survival of the fittest and game theory are well underway. Just imagine if we had this kind of transparency to all government treasury.

https://btctimes.com/el-salvador-reveals-website-to-monitor-360-million-bitcoin-treasury/

More on El Salvador: They mined nearly 474 Bitcoin worth $29 million using volcano-fueled geothermal power in the last three years, Reuters reports.

➡️'A solo miner just mined a block worth 3.319 Bitcoin ($203,000)

The odds of this happening are less than 1 in 1,000' - Thomas Fahrer

➡️'On the 13th of May two Bitcoin wallets, which had been dormant for over 10 years, transferred a total of 1K BTC ($60M). These wallets originally purchased Bitcoin in September 2013 at $124 per Bitcoin.' -BitcoinNews

➡️Ethereum has spent three years above 0.05 BTC.

It's currently breaking down and ETH/BTC is testing its lowest levels in three years. Gotta love it!

➡️'Vanguard and Blackrock have increased their MSTR (MicroStrategy) positions in Q1 2024 by 619,550 shares (28.5% increase over Q4, 2023). Watch what they do, not what they say!' -Jeff Punter

14th of May:

➡️A Wisconsin State Pension Board announces a Bitcoin ETF purchase. They bought $99M of IBIT Bitcoin ETF and became the first state institution to go public with spot Bitcoin ETF holdings.

Believe me, things are warming up! It's only a matter of time before every single state pension fund makes the same move.

Michael Saylor: "There are thousands of pension funds in the United States managing ~$27 trillion in assets. They are all going to need some Bitcoin.

To put this in perspective, the ~27 trillion in assets is more than 2x bigger than Blackrock or roughly equivalent to all the USD in the world.

Why this is important:

Industry paper "Pensions & Investments" interviews Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas on Wisconsin investing into the Bitcoin ETFs: “Pensions are probably the hardest investor type to land,” who likened it to “landing a sailfish.”

Pensions are “very picky, they have access to everything and usually it takes a while for them to bite,"

“And so, the fact that (they) bit that quickly, is just a good sign,” he said.

➡️Oklahoma has become the first State to codify the rights of its citizens to run a node, to mine, and to self-custody their Bitcoin.

Gov. Kevin Stitt put Oklahoma at the forefront of Bitcoin legislation by signing HB3594 into law. (Picture 1)

https://decrypt.co/230962/bitcoin-self-custody-right-law-mining-oklahoma

or read the following note/tweet by Dennis Porter:

https://twitter.com/Dennis_Porter_/status/1790529917199003836

15th of May:

➡️nostr:npub1aa9whw34zlsckvy804y8ukt0u6yd9rkjgn0fnrdwdq3hy8pnqt5sk2v6sm , a great app to buy Bitcoin with, has acquired an additional 1.00295 BTC for ~€57,000 using proceeds from its operational business & excess cash for ~€56,605 per Bitcoin.

➡️Bitcoin reserves at Coinbase gets drained, currently at ~267k, down from 418k early 2024.

➡️Morgan Stanley reporting to have $243M in Bitcoin Spot ETF.

Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/895421/000089542124000355/0000895421-24-000355-index.html

➡️Toronto Dominion Bank has Bitcoin ETF exposure, per SEC filings. Canada's second-largest bank!

16th of May:

➡️'Cornell's BTPI announced a $1M project to research the relationship between Bitcoin and financial freedom across multiple countries.' -Lyn Alden

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/05/btpi-will-research-relationship-between-bitcoin-and-financial-freedom

➡️The world's largest futures exchange CME Group, to launch Bitcoin trading.

➡️'Top Bitcoin ETF Holders of Q1 (updated):

1. Millennium Management ($1.8B)

2. Susquehanna ($1.1B)

3. Bracebridge ($404m)

4. Boothbay ($303m)

5. Morgan Stanley (~$251m)

Bitcoin ETF holders bought $10 billion in Q1. Nearly all of that was in the USA' - Thomas Fahrer

(Picture 2)

➡️'Bitcoin ETFs bought 11,188 BTC, ~5x more than estimated mined Bitcoin.' -BitcoinNews

19th of May:

➡️Someone just moved 16,445 Bitcoin (over $1.1 billion worth) on a Sunday for $7.32.

Mempool tags the transaction as "Overpaid 2x", meaning they could have gotten into the block for only $3.66 in fees.' -BitcoinNews

➡️'17.38% of all Bitcoin has not moved in over 10 years. This is up from 16.1% at the start of 2024.' -BitcoinNews

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

8th of May:

👉🏽 The following thread is a good one by Sam Callahan: https://twitter.com/samcallah/status/1788015909497385409

'According to Nasdaq's Global Financial Crime Report, $3.1 trillion in illicit funds flowed through the traditional financial system last year alone. As in good old-fashioned dirty fiat flowing through dirty banks.'

3 things out of this report: https://nd.nasdaq.com/rs/303-QKM-463/images/2024-Global-Financial-Crime-Report-Nasdaq-Verafin-20240115.pdf

1. $3.1 trillion illicit through the traditional financial system.

2. Bitcoin is not even mentioned in the report as an issue.

3. KYC/AML policies have no measurable impact on stopping illicit transactions.

There is a lot of bluster from policymakers about the effectiveness of KYCL/AML. Does anyone know what's the process to implement metrics to measure the effectiveness of these KYC/AML policies?

Anyway, Bitcoin is the problem in our 'financial' world...right?

👉🏽Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services used 90 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2022, which is more than the country of Colombia - JPMorgan Chase

But noooo, Bitcoin is using way too much energy, innit?

👉🏽'MSCI just announced it is adding Microstrategy, Pure Storage, and Emcor to the MSCI ACWI Index along with a bunch of other adds/drops. Pretty big deal as ACWI has a little over $4T benchmarked to it. Popular with institutions.' - Eric Balchunas

👉🏽Salim Ramji will be the new Vanguard CEO. He used to head up BlackRock's global ETF business. First time ever Vanguard hired an outsider as CEO. Every other one was an internal star and former Bogle assistant.

Remember when we were assured that firing an old CEO had NOTHING to do with Bitcoin? You don't change Bitcoin, Bitcoin changes you!"

👉🏽‘The Big Short’ Michael Burry has bought a physical Gold ETF, which, at 7.4%, is now the 5th largest holding of his portfolio. Number six is Block (formerly Square), which recently announced a DCA program to boost its Bitcoin holdings further.

You see where I am going, right?' - Jeroen Blokland

🏦Banks:

👉🏽Goldman Sachs has appointed Robert Kaplan, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, as its vice chairman.

Kaplan made multiple million-dollar trades in individual stocks and options in 2020.

Then, the Fed slashed interest rates and launched lending and liquidity programs that helped prop up the financial markets.

He quit due to the trades and the conflicts.

After, the Fed itself instituted new trading rules that prohibit officials from owning stocks, bonds, and crypto.' -Unusual Whales

Really! They must abolish the FED as they are not government entities. The Fed speeches are an orchestrated propaganda campaign designed to sustain confidence in a money system backed by nothing but confidence. Just one big revolving door of club members, good old business as usual.

👉🏽The GFC bailout looks like just a blip on the radar vs what the Fed is doing today to support the banks with liquidity via loans/facilities.

And we wonder why the market is up.

This chart blew me away. (Picture 3)

Ergo: The banking system broke in 2023

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

On the 6th of May:

👉🏽'Most people have never seen this chart before.

The S&P 500 grows with the global money supply.

The S&P 500 is a way to concentrate wealth with the wealthy.' (Picture 4)

👉🏽Big Mac went from $0,50 to $8 and lost 40% of its since from 1980 - 2024.

'Further evidence that inflation is accelerating:

US labor costs in the last quarter rose by the most since Q1 2023.

The employment cost index is a broad measure of labor costs closely watched by the Fed.

The index surged by 1.2% in Q1 2024 after a 0.9% increase in Q4 2023, beating all expectations, according to the BLS data.

Labor costs are rising at a comparable pace to mid-2022 when inflation in the US was above 9%.

Wage pressures are accelerating.'- TKL

Inflation and years in which your purchasing power is halved:

2 % 35 years (The goal)

4 % 17 years (Officially we here)

7 % 10 years

10 % 7 years

14 % 5 years (In truth)

17 % 4 years

20 % 3.5 years

Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this

On the 7th of May:

👉🏽US manufacturing and services employment has simultaneously contracted for 3 consecutive months. Over the last 20 years, this has happened ONLY twice, during the 2020 pandemic and 2008 Financial Crisis.

More than 800 companies from the manufacturing and services sectors claim that employment is falling. Meanwhile, according to US jobs data, the US job market has never been stronger. Data indicates that the US has added 100,000+ jobs in 40 straight months, the best streak in US history.

Another disconnect between data and reality.

👉🏽'Within a decade European Union lost about 120 Billion $ in annual foreign direct investment and the US gained about 90 Billion $ per year, but hey let’s regulate AI and introduce a four-day workweek. What needs to happen for European politicians to wake up?'- Michael A. Arouet

Remember this: regulation = uncompetitiveness = wealth migration

Just for clarification, I don't mind having regulations for AI. A vast majority of key experts see existential risk in using AI. But as always the EU is overregulating.

source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD?end=2022&locations=EU-US-CN-GB&most_recent_year_desc=false&start=2022&view=bar

More data on this topic. Germany's real household consumption per capita has not recovered from the pandemic and remains weak; household consumption in the US has grown much faster.

Q4 2019-Q4 2023 : -3.4%; Germany +9.0% US

On the 8th of May:

👉🏽US and Japan reportedly agree on FX intervention.

Ergo: The Fed has to open a swap line and flood them (Japan / The World) with dollars.

By doing that they will bail out nation-states and further increase global liquidity.

For more info on this topic, I highly recommend the following article:

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/japan-now-caught-doom-loop

👉🏽Argentina to print its first 10,000-peso note as a result of hyperinflation.

On the 9th of May:

👉🏽US net interest payments as a percentage of federal revenues are set to reach 34% by 2054.

This means that a third of all government revenue would be spent only to service the national debt.

Over the past 8 years, the percentage has already doubled to ~15% and is at its highest in 3 decades.

Meanwhile, nominal annualized interest payments have crossed above $1 trillion for the first time ever.

We could see $1.6 trillion in annual interest expense by the end of the year if the Fed leaves rates steady.

The US government needs lower interest rates more than anyone.

On the 11th of May:

'Shocking stat of the day:

$2.1 TRILLION of excess savings have been wiped out of the US economy since August 2021.

From March 2020 until August 2021, $2.1 trillion in excess savings were built up after $4 trillion of stimulus.

Since then, US households have depleted these savings at a pace of ~$70 billion per month down to -$72 billion in March 2024.

At the same time, US credit card debt has risen by $330 billion to a record $1.1 trillion.

Meanwhile, savings rates in the US declined from 3.5% in February to 3.2% in March, the lowest since November 2022.

Savings are now considered a luxury.' - TKL

On the 12th of May:

👉🏽That‘s the most scary chart I have seen in a while. Unfunded pension entitlements in major European countries are between 300% and 500% of GDP. Mixed with collapsing demographics it’s a recipe for debt disaster. (Picture 5…Unfortunately I can’t share more than 5 pictures on Nostr via Primal, see the article on my website)

👉🏽Data shows that the number of people in the US working 2 full-time jobs is at an all-time high.

On the 13th of May:

👉🏽'Official world gold reserves have reached 1,170 million fine troy ounces, the most since the 1970s.

Over the last 13 years, world central banks' gold holdings are up roughly 21%.

Global gold reserves are now even higher than just before President Nixon broke the US Dollar's link to gold in 1971.

In 2022 and 2023 alone, world central banks bought 1081 and 1037 tonnes of gold, respectively.

Meanwhile, gold is up 15% year to date and 85% over the last 5 years.' -TKL

👉🏽Janet Yellen admits that higher interest rates make the "fiscal challenge" worse. By fiscal challenge, she means the massive deficit, $34 TRILLION debt and it is (too) expensive for the US government to pay its debt at the current interest rate.

FYI: Bloomberg reports the Treasury Department paid '$2 million per minute' in interest to debt holders in March.

In the near future, this will be $2 million per second.

Her colleague in Canada mentioned the following:

👉🏽The governor of the Central Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem issued a warning of the financial collapse of the fiat system:

“The valuations of some financial assets appear to have become stretched. This could increase the risk of a sharp correction that could generate system-wide stress.”

👉🏽The BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics is a unit of the United States Department of Labor, is removing coffee prices from CPI inflation data. Since Q3 2023, coffee prices surged 78%. More fiat manipulation games are at play.

Meanwhile Coffee is down 72% over 5 years in Bitcoin terms, and it is up 129% in dollar terms. Go figure!

On the 15th of May:

👉🏽US core inflation came out in line with expectations, down to 3.6% y/y from 3.8%

The last time Core CPI was 3.6% the Fed funds rate was 0.08% and a rate hike was a year out.

Today it’s 5.33%. The US Inflation Rate has now been above 3% for 37 consecutive months, the longest period of high inflation since the late 1980s/early 1990s.

1. This means that these inflation numbers are building on multiple years of already inflated prices.

2. This means that overall prices are up over 19.5% in less than 4 years.

1. That is an average of 5.5% per year effectively wiping out ONE FIFTH of the US Dollar's purchasing power. Inflation is now building on previous years of inflation; we effectively have compounding inflation.

In other words, one year ago, the inflation rate dropped to 3% and has averaged 3.3% since then. At this rate, the USD will lose 48% of its purchasing power over the next 20 years.

That's all you need to know. Buy Bitcoin.

👉🏽Treasury bonds have experienced their greatest four-year loss in over 100 years from April 2020 through the recent lows. (Picture 6, Unfortunately I can’t share more than 4pictures on Nostr via Primal, see the article on my website)

Are we shifting from inside money (treasuries) to outside money (hard money like gold or Bitcoin)?

Central banks are buying TWICE as much gold as before.

ETFs are buying 4.5x more Bitcoin than is being MINED/

It's the era of hard money, and there is no second best:

Bitcoin

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:

"In modern times, our money has been broken, because it has been centralized, closed, and corrupted in 160 different ways

If we’re going to fix it in the digital age, a powerful method would be to make it more decentralized, open, and transparent so that it can strengthen people as individuals while at the same time shattering the financial silos that separate us

With open-source money, anyone can hold it, anyone can send it, anyone can bring it with them, anyone can build new technologies that make it better, and everyone across borders can be connected by it"

Impossible not to be bullish on the future after watching Lyn's masterful video

Fix the money, fix the world - Alex Gladstein

Or to put it in Lyn Alden's words:

'I produced a half-hour animated overview of the Broken Money subject matter.

It covers the history of money, the development of banking, and how new technology changes the way we interact with money over time.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk_HWmmwiAs

On top of that the latest newsletter by Lyn Aldens, discusses money-printing, price inflation, and the bond market's inability to forecast it.

https://www.lynalden.com/may-2024-newsletter/

Only invest in Bitcoin what you can’t afford to have gradually stolen from you by the government.

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.

#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr

#plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption

MSCI has added 42 securities, including Microstrategy, to the MSCI Global Investable Market Index.

Your friends, colleagues and parents will ‘own’ Bitcoin and they even don’t know it. 🤣

Gradually, then suddenly!🧡

Study, learn, hodl, decouple.

#bitcoin 🧡

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap 🧡 #nostr #BTC #Bitcoin #plebchain #grownostr #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption

Due to some personal stuff,

No weekly recap this week.🧡

Study, learn, hodl, decouple.

#bitcoin 🧡

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap 🧡 #nostr #BTC #Bitcoin #plebchain #grownostr #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption

🧠Quote(s) of the week:

'Replacing the failed illegal, immoral, illegitimate Ponzi scheme called the US$ is already happening. In case you missed it, the US$ is at least 2 years into an unwinding debt/death spiral that cannot be stopped. Bitcoin replaces the greatest fraud in human history. Period.

The world is moving away from fiat currencies that can be printed and confiscated. While central banks embrace the old (gold) or create a new (digital) fiat-currency (CBDC), I hope the people will be embracing the future with Bitcoin' -Bitcoin Friday

'Over the last year, the US Government borrowed approximately $99,802 per second.' -James Lavish

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

29th of April:

➡️'A solo miner just mined a block worth 3.433 Bitcoin worth $218,544.

The odds of this happening are around 1 in 5,000.' - Bitcoin Magazine

30th of April:

➡️'Hong Kong Bitcoin ETFs were predicted to have $300 million inflows on the first day.

Instead, they merely had $11m in total trading volume.'

This is in comparison to the $655 million in first-day cumulative volume for the US-based Bitcoin ETFs.

For me, the whole Hong Kong Bitcoin ETF was already way overhyped, but liquidity is liquidity, supply & demand is supply & demand. It is still a demand that wasn't there before, Bitcoin is a global asset. A bit further in this segment, you will see that the Hong Kong ETF is catching up though.

➡️If you are a lawmaker, think tank, or policymaker, take a look at this important resource from Satoshi Action. Their latest paper, "Promoting State Financial Innovation: Enhancing State Banking Powers," delves into the federal government's control over the banking sector and explores potential strategies to counteract these challenges:

https://www.satoshiaction.io/debanking

Thread: https://twitter.com/Dennis_Porter_/status/1785343073490284780

➡️ Coinbase rolled out Bitcoin Lightning Network integration.

➡️'Nasdaq-listed Alliance Resources, a $2.8b coal mining company, is mining Bitcoin and currently holds 425 Bitcoin on its balance sheet. The company has additionally adopted the new FASB accounting standards for its holdings.' -Dylan LeClair

I am not surprised though, this is just inevitable. Any energy company should follow suit if they have a surplus of energy (stranded energy) you can convert (monetize) that instantly and profitably into cash for your balance sheet. The new FASB standards allowing fair value accounting for Bitcoin will encourage greater adoption.

2nd of May:

'MicroStrategy launches an enterprise platform for building decentralized identity applications on Bitcoin — MicroStrategy Orange.

The Bitcoin Inscription DID method (did:btc) uses inscriptions in witness data to store and manage DIDs, leveraging UTXOs for DID control.' - Dylan LeClair.

"The Bitcoin Inscription DID method (did:btc) uses the Bitcoin blockchain exclusively to store and retrieve DID information. UTXOs on the chain are used to control DIDs. Inscribing data in the witness of transactions allows for greater extensibility and verbosity when creating DID documents while reducing fees and block space consumed."

Source: https://microstrategy.github.io/did-btc-spec/

Personally, I think it is interesting to see MicroStrategy beginning to deploy products for Bitcoin. If that's a good thing, dunno, I am not a programmer. But this sounds and feels like Nostr, so why not just use Nostr...?

➡️'Jack Dorsey announces that each month Block will be DCA'ing 10% of their monthly gross profit from Bitcoin products into purchases of Bitcoin for investment.

They plan to purchase Bitcoin on a monthly cadence utilizing TWAP orders, starting April 2024.' -Bitcoin News

➡️Senator Cynthia Lummis dares the US Department of Justice about Bitcoin self-custody.

"COME AND TAKE IT"

Power move, your keys...your coin!

➡️ Sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and endowments will start trading Bitcoin ETFs in the coming months - BlackRock's Head of Digital Assets

3rd of May:

➡️'Bitcoin is at 4.7% world adoption, this is the same as Jan 1999 for Internet Adoption.

You are still early... and that's backed by the best data available.'

This is using the latest data available across many studies. See: https://woocharts.com/bitcoin-total-users/…

- Willy Woo

➡️'Hong Kong asset manager Yong Rong just reported owning $38m of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF.

The largest holding by an asset manager in quarterly filings so far.' - Eric Balchunas

➡️Jack Dorsey pens a letter to shareholders of Block, explaining "why the hell [the company] is spending so much time on Bitcoin. (Picture 2)

4th of May:

➡️More on Jack Dorsey, whether you like him or not, Bitcoin is powered by philanthropy, not VC funds.

'OpenSats has received an additional donation of $21M from startsmall - Jack's philanthropic initiative.

$15,000,000 going to our General Fund.

$5,000,000 to our Nostr Fund.

$1M to our operations budget.'

This is what 'putting your money where your mouth is' looks like. This is massive and extremely generous. A+ for supporting Bitcoin development and Nostr (open protocols).

➡️ 'Last week on Friday marked the first time none of the Bitcoin ETFs saw negative flows.

In fact, GBTC saw over 4X in the inflows of BlackRock.' - Bitcoin News

5th of May:

➡️'Total Bitcoin held on exchanges has fallen by 360,000 ($22.9B) over the last year. ' -Thomas Fahrer

6th of May:

➡️'Bitcoin whales accumulated 47K Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. We’re entering a new era," CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju said on Saturday.' - Bitcoin News

➡️Today an old wallet from 2011 just moved $44 Million worth of BTC. The owner of the wallet hodled all the way from $2 to $65000.

➡️Hong Kong's new spot Bitcoin ETFs attract $230M in assets under management (AUM) during their first week.

China AMC was the most successful with $116M, followed by Bosera International & HashKey Capital at $57M, and Harvest Global Investment also at $57M.

➡️ 'Bitcoin has officially processed over 1 BILLION transactions all time.' -Pete Rizzo (foto)

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

👉🏽 Berkshire Hathaway’s cash pile reached a new all-time high of $189 BILLION in Q1 2024.

This is a $19 billion increase from their cash balance seen in Q4 2023 and a 70% increase in cash since 2022. To put this in perspective, Berkshire Hathaway’s cash balance is larger than the market cap of Starbucks and Target combined.

When asked about this, Warren Buffet said "I don’t mind at all, given current conditions, building our cash position." - TKL

🏦Banks:

👉🏽no news

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

On the 30th of April:

👉🏽'Current US Debt is 34.7 trillion.

To give an idea of how big that is, if you stacked $1 bills, you would have enough money to stack from here to the moon 9.86 times.

The math below for the data geeks:

The thickness of a US dollar bill is 0.0043 inches.

Average distance to the Moon: 384,400 km.

1 inch = 2.54cm so 1000 dollar bills stacked is 0.0043x2.54x1000 = 10.922cm

so 100,000 is 10.922m

so 100,000,000 is 10922m (10.92km)

so 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) is 10922 km

so 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) is 109,220km

so 34.7 trillion is 34.7x109,200 = 3.790million km =

9.86 trips to the moon.'

9 times people, too big to comprehend and everyone just thinks: 'Oh well. Doesn't affect me.'

The debt will get bigger & bigger and the Ponzi scheme will keep going as long as citizens stay uneducated regarding Monetary History and what money is. The fall of empires (the Romans, the Dutch, the UK, and now the US) is directly correlated to the debasement of money.

On the same day...

👉🏽US TREASURY SECRETARY YELLEN: I AM CONCERNED ABOUT WHERE WE'RE GOING WITH THE US DEFICIT.

The main question should be...at what point are they alarmed or panicked? And when the shit is hitting the fan are they going to warn you?

Just a thought.

1st of May:

👉🏽'The US economy LOST 192,000 jobs in Q3 2023, according to the BED report released by the BLS last week.

BED data tracks quarterly changes in employment at all private businesses in the US economy.

Meanwhile, US nonfarm payroll data showed that the US labor market added 494,000 new jobs in Q3 2023. This is a WHOPPING 686,000 difference in job count over just one quarter.

The BED data from the BLS suggests that the final labor market revisions released in 2025 will be MUCH lower than the headline-reported job numbers.'- TKL

TLDR: The numbers are fake. What is happening is outright data manipulation and nobody gaslights harder than the government... apparently or they aren't capable enough. Pick one.

'US Treasury announces first treasury buyback operation since 2002

The US Treasury is launching its first buyback program since 2002, scheduled to start on May 29, 2024. The program is designed to improve liquidity in the Treasury market and is expected to run through July 2024. During this period, the Treasury plans to hold weekly liquidity support buybacks of up to $2 billion per operation, with up to $500 million allocated for TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities). This initiative aims to ensure the Treasury market remains the deepest and most liquid in the world, addressing concerns about market functioning and resilience.' - MartyParty

IMO: This is a bank bailout. Treasury QE is on its way.

3rd of May:

👉🏽M2 Money Supply has flipped positive. (Picture 3)

The last time M2 increased, the Bitcoin bull market ripped.

👉🏽Everyone and their mother is talking about unsustainable US fiscal deficit and debt.

Take a look at off-balance-sheet pension entitlements in Southern Europe at 500% of GDP. Combined with collapsing demographics it’s a severe debt crisis in the making. What’s the solution? (Picture 4)

Why Bitcoin is my pension. Well, most of the people in my generation understand that the pension system is a Ponzi scheme. The boomers enjoy on average 1800 €/month pension. My generation might get even more in nominal terms in 20 years, but the real purchasing power of those future pensions is weak to at least. With Bitcoin, my purchasing power is getting better and better. As a European with kid(s)...the solution is leaving at some point before the collapse because they probably will port over the Dutch pensions into the European ones. The question is though, where? With Bitcoin, I will grant myself and my family some optionality.

👉🏽"This is absolutely priceless. And probably the most frightening clip you'll ever watch on the people in charge of the US economy.

Jared Bernstein is literally the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, the main agency advising Biden on economic policy, and he can't even explain why governments borrow money in the currency they print out of thin air.

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1786277466824466896

It's a clip from the award-winning documentary "Finding the Money". - Arnaud Bertrand

Honestly one of the best motivational speeches for Bitcoiners I’ve ever seen. When this is all said and done everyone will agree once again that fiat money is a Ponzi and pretend like they held that opinion the entire time. If this video doesn’t convince you to buy Bitcoin you’ll never understand it.

4th of May:

👉🏽'The cost of buying a home in the US rises to $2,750/month, the second highest ever recorded, according to Reventure.

Before the pandemic in 2022, the average home in the US would cost $1,400/month.

In other words, it is now 100% MORE expensive to buy a home in 2024 compared to 2020.

Even at the peak of the 2008 Financial Crisis, the average home payment peaked at $1,550/month.

The average US family would need to spend 44% of their PRE-TAX income to buy a home today.' -TKL

Remember: The United States dollar has lost over 25% of its purchasing power since January 2020. The US government has issued a whopping $11 TRILLION of debt over the last 4 years.

By comparison, it took the US 220 years to add the first $11 trillion of Federal debt.

Unsustainable!

👉🏽The US has added $100,000 in Federal debt EVERY SECOND over the last year.

Since March 1st, the US has been adding a staggering $10 billion in debt PER DAY.

That's $417 million per hour, $6.9 million per minute, and $115,740 per second.

As interest rate cuts are priced out, we could see $1.7 TRILLION in annual interest expense just one year from now.

Even if the Fed cut rates 6 times this year, interest expense will still hit $1.2 trillion next year.

Ironically, the US government needs lower interest rates more than anyone.

And in March, the Treasury Department paid out about $89 billion in interest to debt holders — or roughly $2 million per minute.

Source: https://archive.ph/7MzeX

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:

Great panel discussions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA4jzHIPj7A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ0o2Do4n5k

Only invest in Bitcoin what you can’t afford to have gradually stolen from you by the government.

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

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