A few days ago, I posted that the White House has stooped to a new low, trotting out long-proven false narratives to justify their latest attack on #Bitcoin. I didn't sufficiently provide background or citations to what they are now proposing, or why it's such bad public policy. Some friends asked for more detail, and I apologize I haven't had time to respond adequately until now.

First, President Biden signed an Executive Order that, inter alia, required the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to produce a report on the climate and energy implications of crypto assets. Because Bitcoin mining is far and away the largest component of energy usage in the "crypto asset" space, we all assumed (correctly, it turns out), that this would be the primary focus.

So OSTP dutifully dug in and began uncovering all the available research on this topic. They met with lots of experts and "experts" covering every angle. This included quite a few experts who were able to document serious, even fatal, flaws in much of the research. Sadly they didn't do any actual work on their own (which is critically needed if we're going to maximize the effectiveness of public policy).

In any case, OSTP published their report here:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/09-2022-Crypto-Assets-and-Climate-Report.pdf

The report ended up being a ridiculously bad hit piece. It was very clear that OSTP had been told in advance what conclusions to come to, and in order to reach those false conclusions, they had to rely almost entirely on the results of previous non-academic, biased studies that have been completely debunked. The data are wrong. The narratives are complete nonsense. The "resesrch" completely fails to meet any minimal standard of academic rigor. And OSTP was shown this repeatedly. Yet they completely ignored all the real evidence, and based their conclusions entirely on the fatally flawed work that could be used to support the political narrative they were told to support.

And that political narrative is VERY bad for the United States. Not just a neutral thing, but outright damaging to the country. Nic Carter does a great job of explaining all this here, while completely destroying the OSTP report:

https://medium.com/@nic__carter/comments-on-the-white-house-report-on-the-climate-implications-of-crypto-mining-8d65d30ec942

Now cut to budget fight season, and the White House doubled down on all the false narratives and predictably announced their completely ridiculous new proposed "DAME tax" on Bitcoin mining:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2023/05/02/cost-of-cryptomining-dame-tax/

[As a side note, how did no one get fired for that ridiculously bad name? I mean I thought that word had been canceled in English, and the meaning in both Spanish and Japanese is hilarious in this context.]

Anyway, this is what spurred my post last week. I wish I could attribute this proposed tax to ignorance. But the White House has repeatedly been shown the falsity of their narratives on this topic. In fact, the tax policy they propose will clearly achieve the EXACT OPPOSITE OF their stated objectives.

So I can only conclude they are intentionally peddling this false drivel only to justify a political object that is very different from the made-up objectives they are claiming publicly. They have made up a fake problem, then proposed a fake solution that apparently targets some different goal.

Here is a good rebuttal of the DAME tax that covers all this much better:

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/11/the-white-houses-bitcoin-mining-tax-undermines-itself/

At this point, I'll leave it for the reader to do his/her own further homework. Or don't. That's what the White House would prefer.

So does anyone else find this COMPLETELY DISGUSTING? The government was fully captured in this case, and did absolutely NOTHING to stop this fraud. Now they pull their "we're the government" card and jump in front of the line to take priority over all the other poor creditors who actually lost money to these scammers.

The government needs to be reminded that they work at the pleasure of the people. Not the other way around. They have completely lost the plot. It's not that they are just ineffective. Not being helpful would be bad enough. But no, they are actively working AGAINST the interests of the electorate. 😡

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/05/10/us-internal-revenue-service-files-claims-worth-44-billion-against-ftx-bankruptcy/

Sometimes a flowchart helps clarify my thought process. 😁

Good morning, JFK!

Boarded now, DL384, SAN-JFK. First time I've ever flown this route. Did I mention I hate West Coast red-eyes? #sleepontheplane

There are only two options:

1) the gov and/or Fed, with a wink and a printing press, forced 11 banks to bail out a failing competitor for a few days, or

2) they are so afraid of something that they did this on their own volition.

I'm not sure which reality is more frightening.

Another great Board of Directors meeting for ASRI. The amazing team at this little company is doing great things for the entire aviation industry.

Quick transfer from A5 to A12 in Atlanta, and we're on the way to San Diego on DL937.

Boarded now, DL1946, SJU-ATL. Stop me if you've heard this one before. I mean I was home for three whole weeks. #sleepontheplane

The new Bank Term Funding Program (#BTFP) is interesting. Remember when the Fed was supposed to be completely independent of the gov? 🤣 And now they are voluntarily accepting highly discounted assets from distressed banks at par value because...why, exactly? Who benefits?

Trying to understand what happened to SVB, what might happen next, and how it could impact your banks? This is a pretty awesome summary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1g7ZUQkWI

Here's the thing about #contagion in the 🤡 world of fiat finance: you usually can't see it until you can't miss it. Then it's too late. #counterpartyrisk is never priced in, until it is. #fractionalreserve works until it doesn't.

The next 72 hours will be very interesting.

Nearly the entire adult population in the #Philippines now has a #Bitcoin wallet in their pocket!

Most #Filipinos do not have a bank account. But 85% of adults in the Philippines use a payments app called #GCash. As of today, GCash users can now buy, sell, send and receive #BTC.

Today, the inflation rate in #bitcoin is about 1.8 %. In about a year (at the next "halvening") it will be well under 1%. Practically flat.

Meanwhile, inflation for nearly all fiat currencies (e.g., USD, EUR, JPY) looks like a steep upward slope, and it will only get steeper as politicians can't help but spend money they don't have (and thus, have to print).

The cool thing is, unless you live in North Korea or a similar regime, YOU GET TO CHOOSE the currency in which you denominate your wealth.

Think about that. You can choose! Far too many of you don't even bother making a choice. You just go with whatever the default is where you live, and never give it a thought. I'm sorry, but that kind of mental laziness is not going to serve you well.

If you live in a country with one of the worst fiat currencies, chances are that you have at least tried from time to time to store funds in a better fiat currency. Or maybe in gold or other assets.

But if you live in the US, or Switzerland or someplace with one of the stronger fiat currencies, there's a good chance you haven't given any thought to how money works. And you have kind of been able to get away with that. But those days are quickly coming to an end.

I think the choice is pretty easy. I'm very heavily weighted in bitcoin. But if you're not so sure about that, at least diversify a bit with some better fiat currencies (e.g., the little bit of funds I have in the Armenian dram has been very good for me, up some 23% vs. USD in the last year). Or move a percentage into physical gold. Or buy some commodities or something. Anything! Except maybe all those crypto scams--avoid those. 😏

If nothing else, at least THINK for yourself and don't just do the lazy default thing because it's the easiest.

I think I'm already following you on Nostr. N4GN here. npub1t0ttenlstqhx7nvqkrj9p822qygz2evpjt86nrep0a8js2x7r7wqe5g9s3

I'm in KP4 now, using the NP4TT club call. But haven't put up any antennas yet. Give me a few days if no other takers.

I guess Chat GPT has me figured out. LOL!

Is there a perfect #EDC #gun? No. But I think this is as close as I've ever come to creating one. Serialized custom FCU with a little trigger improvement (because Puerto Rico won't let me make my own FCU). SIG SAUER P365XL slide. Holosun HS507K X2 optic. And most importantly, the new X-MACRO grip module with the large backstrap. 17+1 capacity (!) in a very small, very thin pistol that fits my hands nicely. Loaded up with 147-gr Federal HSTs, with the Lexington holster all tuned up, and ready to go!

Finally opened my first balanced channel today, using BOS open-group-channel. I'll definitely be doing this a lot more with all my nodes going forward.

If anyone is interested in opening a balanced channel between 5 and 15 Msats, let me know!

I kinda like Blue Wallet. I've only used it connected to my own nodes, but it seemed like a straightforward recommendation in custodial mode for newcoiners, especially if they are stuck on using that fruity phone OS. Hope they have a business model in mind (whirlpool maybe?) to keep the development going.

So this basically turns a lightning payment flow back into an on-chain channel creation plus payment (with associated fees). Seems like something an engineer thought would be cool to do, and no one asked the business guy's opinion. LOL!