You cannot "own" #Bitcoin in the traditional sense of owning stuff.

No matter what governments, courts, chain-anal people, or anyone else tells you, there is no way of proving that someone DOESN'T know a string of information such as a private key.

From this perspective, satoshis aren't ever transferred but rather reorganized on the timechain for communication purposes.

The twelve magic words do not belong to anyone. They're just twelve words.

What Bitcoin makes so blatantly obvious is that money was never anything but information.

A ban on "self-hosted wallets" is as absurd as a ban on using your brain.

Such a ban would have severe consequences.

It would deny you the right to keep a secret while granting the government the right to claim that you do, making everyone a criminal.

YOU would have to prove that you DON'T know something, which is impossible.

You would be guilty until proven innocent, which cannot be proven.

Any law trying to stop or restrict Bitcoin usage is nothing less than a crime against humanity.

IMHO, the Bitcoin community should do everything in its power to prevent such laws. Your ability to use a communications network shouldn't depend on where you were born.

Do your part and educate as many people as you can as often as possible.

Speech is never free but always costly. It's high time to separate speech and state!

When I was 12 I planned for a solid week how I could douse myself in gasoline, light myself on fire and then jump off the roof into my friends pool.

I only didn’t do it because we were convinced the gasoline would mean the pool would have to be drained and my friends father would be pissed the fuck off.

It’s a miracle I’m still alive today lol 😂

What's up #nostr ?? 😉

🎶

Clowns to the left of me

Jokers to the right

Here I am

Stuck in the mempool with you

🎶

How can Bitcoin halving day not be on 4/20?!

Let's see if Grandpa #Bitcoin is still virile enough to go on yet another parabolic run over the next 18 months or so, post-halving.

I'm guessing he can still get it done... surprising even many bulls to the upside in 2024-25.

Slowly at first, then face-melting.

Why does the government have ongoing inflation targets?

"By a continuing process of inflation, the government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens."

- John Maynard Keynes

People who like you will see that you are trying to be better than you were yesterday and appreciate you for it.

People who hate you will judge you for who you were yesterday.

One troubling thing about humanity is knowing that there will always be those who wish to judge you based on your past mistakes.

One uplifting thing about humanity is that there are many many more people who are interested in your growth and development.

Let’s say you overcame alcoholism.

It’s more rare than not to meet a person who says “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. You’ll never change”.

Most people will congratulate you on overcoming your challenge and wish you well in regards to your future.

The reason the negative outlier stands out is often because we speak to ourselves the same way.

We are our own worst critics.

And hearing an outside source validate our secret horrible thoughts about ourselves makes them seem even more true.

But they’re not.

Don’t give in to fear and self doubt.

Most people are rooting for you.

Give yourself permission to root for you too.

A couple months ago I had a discussion with the head of digital assets at a multi-trillion AUM financial institution about the topic of whether bitcoin is a risk-on asset or a risk-off asset.

This wasn’t about what it is conceptually (i.e. globally portable finite bearer assets are conceptually good to own in a crisis, neither of us disagreed on this), but rather how its price would *actually* behave in a crisis currently and for the next several years.

Their view was that it could be marketed as a risk-off asset, meaning something that is likely to go up in a crisis, and that if marketed this way it would allow them to put bitcoin ETFs into more portfolios and weight it bigger.

My view was that while of course people should own bitcoin, it’s not yet a risk-off asset in practice in terms of price action, and that marketing it that way is likely to lead to disappointment for those that expect it to perform like that.

We then got into a discussion about how bitcoin went up in the March 2023 banking crisis. They suggested that this is evidence of emerging risk-off behavior, to their point.

I disagreed, and clarified that in my analysis the closest correlation to bitcoin price action is measures of global liquidity. Some types of crises are pro-liquidity and some are anti-liquidity, and will likely affect bitcoin’s price accordingly.

The March 2023 banking crisis was a pro-liquidity event because it was quickly apparent that the Fed/Treasury would bail banks out fast and slow their rate hikes. Therefore, bitcoin went up not because it was a risk-off asset per se, but rather because it behaved as a pro-liquidity asset as it frequently has.

The Iran/Israel event this weekend was an anti-liquidity crisis because it contributed to a flight-to-safety move toward the dollar (i.e. the unit of account for which the most debt is denominated in, and debt represents inflexible demand for that unit). A sharp move up in the dollar is bad for global liquidity because it hardens the debts of various foreign entities (sovereigns and corporations) relative to their cash flows (which are to varying degrees partially or completely denominated in fiat units other than the dollar). And so bitcoin behaved as it normally does: it went down amid falling global liquidity.

At this stage (with its relatively small size, high volatility, and poor understanding of most people for the asset), I continue to view bitcoin price action as likely to be pretty correlated with global liquidity for a while. Understanding that dynamic is helpful when communicating expectations to people and when determining which types of crises are likely to push its price up or down. Yes, bitcoin is a risk-off asset conceptually, but in practice in terms of macro price action it is still a pro-liquidity asset primarily.

When bitcoin price action starts to behave differently from that trend, I’d be happy to report on that observation.

Doesn’t negate his apparent hate for BTC.