Circle P:

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
It is 08:47AM
Pacific Daylight Time. It is the July
2025.
This is episode eleven twenty five
of Bitcoin, and we got lots to cover today. We got a Celsius lawsuit that has been allowed to move forward.
That one's gonna be against Tether.
It looks like the knives are out. It's be maybe the night of the long knives. Who knows? And then we got a UK pension firm that is seeing growing interest in Bitcoin,

(00:32):
and I think that the following is going to be the most interesting. We're gonna talk about Figma. And if you don't know what Figma is, you will, in a moment,
Arizona and Connecticut decide to commit suicide.
It's just gonna be awesome for them.
Deutsche Bank is back in the news. I talked about him yesterday

(00:55):
on a completely different subject.
But now Deutsche Bank is back in the news with something completely different,
and the Bank of Korea has suspended
their CBDC
project.
I can't imagine why. What could possibly
cause a country to abandon
their crappy

(01:16):
crappy
surveillance coin?
You can probably guess.
And then
Lolli. If you don't know what Lolli is, you will by the end of the show.
They've been around for a long time, and it looks like they got bought out.
Does that make them a sellout?
I don't know. We'll we'll we'll talk about it. And Wallet and Satoshi is going to round us out. But first,

(01:43):
let's get into the news that is the news that you can use. Judge Lits Celsius'
$4,000,000,000
Bitcoin lawsuit against Tether
move forward. Amen Hasquinas or Haskshanas
has this one for Cointelegraph.
A US bankruptcy bankruptcy
judge ruled

(02:04):
that Celsius Network's
multibillion
dollar lawsuit against Tether
can proceed.
Denying, in part, Tether's attempt to dismiss claims that it improperly
liquidated
Celsius'
Bitcoin collateral during the crypto lenders collapse.
According to court documents filed in New York on Monday,

(02:26):
Celsius alleges
that Tether executed
a fire sale
of over 39,500
Bitcoin in June of twenty twenty two
applying the proceeds against Celsius'
$812,000,000
debt without following agreed upon procedures.

(02:48):
Celsius claims
Tether's actions
breached their lending agreement,
violated
good faith and fair dealing under British Virgin
Islands
law, and
constituted fraudulent and preferential transfers avoidable under The US bankruptcy code.
The complaint centers on a margin call Tether issued as Bitcoin prices plunged.

(03:11):
Celsius argues
that Tether sold its collateral before a ten hour waiting period, liquidating the Bitcoin at an average price of $20,656
which was well below market levels,
and later
transferring the assets to its own Bitfinex account.

(03:31):
I don't know. It just sounds like they made a margin call to me. But, anyway,
the filing alleges that Tether's liquidation
cost Celsius over $4,000,000,000
worth of Bitcoin at current prices.
Well, maybe you shouldn't have been defrauding all of your customers.
I'm just saying.
Celsius further claims that Tether's actions involved US based communications,

(03:54):
personnel,
and financial
oh, sorry. Personal and financial accounts
establishing sufficient ties for US jurisdiction despite Tether's incorporation
in the British Virgin Islands and Hong Kong.
The judge
agreed
Celsius made a plausible case that the transfers and alleged misconduct

(04:14):
were domestic in nature,
rejecting Tether's arguments
that the claim represents an impermissible
extra
extraterritorial application
of United States'
state's bankruptcy
law. In August of twenty twenty four, Tether sought to dismiss the lawsuit
entirely,
claiming
that The US Court lacked jurisdiction

(04:36):
and that Celsius's
allegations
failed to state valid claims.
While the court dismissed some counts, it allowed Celsius's
key breach of contract,
fraudulent transfer,
and preference claims to proceed. And those are the most harsh, by the way.
Celsius, once among crypto's largest lenders, officially

(04:59):
exited bankruptcy January
2024
after an eighteen month restructuring process, and the company is now in the process of repaying its creditors.
In June,
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said that the company has no plans to go public.
Ardoino responded to speculation about a potential Tether IPO, dismissing the idea even as observers suggested that a public offering could value the stablecoin giant

(05:25):
at over $500,000,000,000
larger than corporations like Costco
and Coca Cola.
Wow. Calling
a 15
or rather a fifth 500 good lord. $515,000,000,000
valuation, a beautiful number.
Arduinos suggested it might even undervalue

(05:47):
Tether considering its sizable Bitcoin and gold reserves.
Meanwhile,
Tether continues to expand its Bitcoin footprint becoming the majority owner of Jack Mallers twenty one Capital,
now the world's third largest corporate Bitcoin holder. Tether recently transferred nearly 37,230
BTC worth about $4,000,000,000

(06:08):
to addresses tied to that platform.
That's, I guess, a little aside for this story.
I think
that this is knives out on Tether from The United States judicial
standpoint.
I
I
I have made several
on several occasions, I've made the argument

(06:30):
that Tether is going to be The United States'
go to
to transfer debt that is created in The United States to the rest of the world, and Circle
is going to be their domestic stablecoin
partner. So why on earth would The United States
do this?
I kinda think that it's a semblance of to make it look like,

(06:55):
that they're really, you know,
that they're really not looking at Tether the way that I think that they're looking at Tether, like they're a partner to float United States debt to to the rest of the world. I think it's like I honestly kind of think it's just
I kinda think it's a play.
Like, it's set dressing.

(07:15):
Like, it's, oh, we couldn't possibly,
you know, just go through with with with our plan to float a whole bunch of debt through Tether to the rest of the world because they're not incorporated in The United States.
So I know. We'll make it say we'll make it look like we're we're, you know, we're really gonna be coming down hard on them.
I I kinda think that that's what it is because Tether is the one place in the world, it's the one company in the world that would allow

(07:41):
The United States to transfer
enormous amounts of freshly printed debt instrumentation
outside The United States.
Now that said,
Circle is definitely vying
for position in the stablecoin market. There's there's just no two ways about it. And Jeremy Allaire and his little band of merry miscreants

(08:07):
are not stupid.
They're conniving,
they're crafty,
they're fairly sinister,
and they're well positioned to actually do something like that. So it would not surprise me whatsoever
if they aren't going to work the leverage
on their side of The United States judicial system to do everything that they can to hurt Tether, and honestly, I don't think it's going to work.

(08:35):
If we get into the particulars of this particular well, if we get into the particulars of this case, this Celsius
again you know, Celsius versus Tether,
I honestly don't think that Celsius
really has a leg to stand on
unless
it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt two things,

(08:57):
that the ten hour deadline
was in fact
part of the deal,
and everybody signed that deal, and nobody can escape the fact that everybody signed that deal,
and
Tether pulled the trigger prematurely and sold
all the Bitcoin before that ten hour

(09:19):
deadline.
We don't know. We're not part of Discovery. We're not part of the lawyer teams where we'd have no idea
what that agreement actually looks like,
and we don't know
if Tether actually
breached that agreement. If here's the here's the thing, though. If they did breach the agreement

(09:43):
and they have to pony up $4,000,000,000,
which I don't think even if they are found guilty, I don't think they're gonna have to pony up $4,000,000,000
because Tether
would only be on the hook for what damages was done
at the time of the sale. At least that's that's my take on it. Nobody knew at the time nobody had a crystal ball at the time to tell them that we were gonna be looking at a $105,000

(10:11):
Bitcoin right now.
So I don't think that they'd be on the hook for the 4 for the for the full $4,000,000,000.
That's a lot of f's in there.
Even if they were, guess what?
They they can do that.
Tether made $13,000,000,000
with 200 people last year. That was net revenue.

(10:33):
Not gross.
That was net revenue.
$13,000,000,000.
They've got they're sitting on more money than they really know what to do with.
I also agree with Palo Ardoino.
Palo
Ardoino. I am having some difficulty speaking this morning. Sorry, y'all.
I think that Tether probably is

(10:55):
more valuable than Coca Cola at this point.
I think it probably is more valuable than a lot of $500,000,000,000
companies.
It's not that I like them, but I also don't hate them. I'm rather new honestly, I'm rather neutral on them except that it's a fascinating story.
From that standpoint, I love the story.

(11:16):
But we've got yet other fish to fry,
And these fish are much older
from Decrypt and Connor
Sefton.
UK pension firm
sees growing interest in Bitcoin exposure,
A financial firm that enabled a UK pension fund to put Bitcoin on its balance sheet told Decrypt that it's seeing growing interest from other clients.

(11:42):
Arash Nasri,
a senior investment consultant at Cartwright Pension Trusts,
also revealed that wider industry reaction has been surprisingly positive.
The company helped an unnamed British client make a 3% allocation
to the world's largest cryptocurrency in November of twenty twenty four.
And according to Nasri,

(12:04):
it secured a 60%
return on investment in under twelve months. That's almost unheard of, guys.
Cartwright has now launched its first ever annual Bitcoin review, which it which is designed to raise awareness within the institutional community.
When asked whether the pioneering pension fund would consider increasing its BTC allocation moving forward, Nasri said, quote,

(12:27):
if Bitcoin continues to produce the returns we anticipate, the decision will more likely be when should we trim,
end quote.
He added that discussions are ongoing with several other clients about following suit, but it's crucial for pension funds to be fully informed about how Bitcoin works
and gradually build up an allocation with a long term outlook.

(12:50):
Stressing that Cartwright doesn't have any, quote, skin in the game, Nasri stressed, quote, we are independent advisers
who have built a deep understanding of the potential impact of Bitcoin in coming years on individuals,
companies,
asset owners, and governments. We see it as our fiduciary
duty
to investors
to raise awareness.

(13:12):
The investment consultant admitted that there has been pushback from some skeptics within the British pensions industry saying, quote, a common retort
has been that Bitcoin's price is too volatile.
This is disappointing to hear as our industry
should be experts in portfolio
construction
and position sizing. He also spoke

(13:36):
spoke out against a lack of willingness
for many in our industry to learn about an emerging form of money and a new technology which could,
parenthesis, will, in our view, in parenthesis, be hugely impactful
to an investment portfolio and future returns.
Nasri then told Decrypt that Cartwright
hasn't just been encountering growing interest from pension schemes.

(13:59):
Corporations
are beginning to learn how Bitcoin can be used for twenty four seven cross border transactions
and help as a reserve asset while charities are increasingly seeing it as another source for donations.
Nonetheless, he stressed that Bitcoin might not be suitable for everyone. Quote, Bitcoin in a portfolio is not appropriate

(14:21):
where the investment time horizon is short,
but that still leaves hundreds of defined benefit schemes,
all defined contribution schemes, and most charities and companies
that should be having a serious conversation
about it, he said.
So here we have this company
who advises

(14:41):
pension funds on what to buy. And
Cartwright, that's the name of this company,
advised an unknown
British pension fund
to put 3%
of all of their shit into Bitcoin. And lo and behold, inside of twelve months, they had a 60 percent return on that 3%,
which probably completely destroyed the rest of the portfolio,

(15:04):
at least in in terms of performance.
So what does that pension company do moving forward?
They're probably kind of freaking out, honestly. You would think that I would say, well, they're going to clearly buy more Bitcoin. No. Probably not.
They're probably going to sit on what they have, and it's probably going to continuously destroy,

(15:24):
in terms of performance, the rest of their portfolio.
But the good news is is that there's a bunch of other companies that are saying, hey.
We want some of that.
We want some of that, and it's not just other pension funds. It's charities that are asking questions. It's corporations that are asking questions.
Cartwright

(15:44):
looks like they may end up being
a a very
well positioned company for consulting
just on Bitcoin and digital assets going into the future.
But you know who else is moving into the future? And this is this is the one that that I'm I'm honestly
I don't know why I'm so excited about this one, but I just am. And it's probably because I spent ten years in a room full

(16:10):
of web developers and all of them
all of them at one point or another. Hell, even my wife.
Hell, even my son
has been playing with Figma.
Now what what is what is Figma? It's a design software,
and most of the people that I see using Figma

(16:31):
use it to design
what the front end application on an iPhone or an Android or a website
is gonna look like. It doesn't build the thing. It just helps people look at where where should buttons be placed on this iPhone app. And it allow it it allows you to visually design what that thing is going to look like so that you can just start showing it to people and say, you know, do you like where this button is? Figma,

(17:01):
turns
out, is one of the
go to
software design packages that has ever been built.
Everybody,
not everybody, but so many people
that are doing
software
and application construction,
so many of those people use Figma. It's almost as if it's just

(17:23):
it's just part it's a standard in your toolkit.
And Figma has just revealed
that they own $70,000,000
of the Bitcoin ETFs
and plan to buy $30,000,000
more. Yes. I know. They're not holding it themselves,
but, hey, it's a step in the right direction for Figma. Oscar Perez out of Bitcoin Magazine tell us more.

(17:47):
Design platform Figma revealed in a new SEC filing that it owns $70,000,000
in Bitcoin ETFs
and was approved to buy 30,000,000 more.
The disclosure came as part of Figma's s one filing released alongside its bid to go public.
Figma held $78,800,000
in a Bitcoin exchange traded fund as of no rather 12/31/2024

(18:12):
categorized as a level one asset.
As of 03/31/2025,
the value declined to 69,500,000.0,
which included
in its $1,500,000,000
total of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. Quote, we have an investment in a Bitcoin exchange traded fund, said the filing document.

(18:33):
The fair value of this investment was 69,500,000.0
as of 03/31/2025.
Changes in the fair value of this exchange traded fund are impacted by the volatility of Bitcoin and changes in general economic conditions,
among other factors.
On 03/03/2024,
the board of directors approved an investment of $55,000,000

(18:55):
into
a Bitcoin exchange traded fund investment operated by Bitwise.
So they didn't go for BlackRock.
They went to Bitwise.
This and that's really important.
Bitwise, if if I remember correctly, it's Bitwise
that gives
a standing 10%

(19:17):
of their earnings
to Open Sats
as charitable contribution for the development of Bitcoin and other freedom
open
freedom oriented free and open source software projects.
BlackRock does not. Most of the other ETFs do not. Bitwise
does.

(19:38):
And that's why it's really interesting that Figma chose Bitwise
for their investment
holder anyway. Quote,
the investment is classified as an equity security within marketable securities for the periods presented.
On May 2025, the company's board approved an additional 30,000,000
investment in Bitcoin

(19:59):
following the approval Figma purchased $30,000,000
worth of the stablecoin
USDC
with plans to convert it into Bitcoin at a later date.
The filing notes the ETF's volatility but also states
no credit losses
have been recorded on the asset.
Sigma re reported

(20:19):
$23,800,000
in unrealized
gains from equity investments for the year ending 12/31/2024
and 300,000.0
quarter 01/2024.
However, it recognized a $9,300,000
of unrealized losses in the first quarter of this year.
Interest income from cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities totaled 63,700,000.0

(20:42):
in 2024
and 15,500,000.0
in the first quarter of this year. So it looks to me like they have
$78,800,000
in a in a Bitcoin exchange traded fund, and then that dropped to 69,500,000.0.
Oh, boo hoo. Because they bought it for $55,000,000,

(21:05):
so they are still making out like bandits.
And they are just about to throw $30,000,000
more. And the fact
that Figma
has absolutely
nothing to do at all with Bitcoin or cryptocurrency
in any development
way
other than the fact that developers prob like, I'm I'm sure

(21:28):
j b fifty five, the creator of Domus, which is a Nostra client, I I guarantee you he uses Figma.
I guarantee you the developers
all over Nostra use Figma. I guarantee you the developers all over the world use Figma. And
while some of them are using it to maybe build the front ends of Bitcoin wallets,

(21:51):
Figma itself has nothing to do with cryptocurrency
other than the fact that now we know they own a shit ton of it.
And Figma is nothing to shake a stick at.
That's one of the reasons why I'm so excited. I'm so excited I'm drooling on myself, and I might need a nice bar of soap to get it off. You can get your soaps at soapminer.com.

(22:14):
It's handmade
tallow soap, ladies and gentlemen. It's got almost nothing in it
except all the things that make up good soap. For instance,
let's see. The rough cut tallow,
soap bar is,
five ounces,
dollars 7.
It has the following ingredients.

(22:34):
100%
pure grass fed beef tallow,
sodium hydroxide,
otherwise known as
lye, and distilled water.
Is that clean enough for you?
Is that devoid of of of parabens enough for you? Is that devoid of red food dye number five and blue lake number six artificial colorings? Is it is that devoid

(23:00):
enough of the bullshit for you? Because I'm not sure
if you can actually make soap with anything less than fat,
lye, and water.
This soap lasts forever. I got a family of four. It took weeks
for us to get through this single five ounce bar of rough cut talus soap,

(23:21):
and SoapMiner takes Bitcoin.
If you're not taking Bitcoin for your goods and service, you're not in the circle p. The circle p is where I bring plebs just like you that have goods and services for sale to plebs just like you who want to buy those goods and services in Bitcoin.
Soap miner takes Bitcoin. Go to soapminer.com,
soapminer.com.

(23:42):
Get you a bar soap that's going to last your family for weeks
you cannot only get a rough cut tallow bar if you want it if you want
Earl Grey
tallow soap bars, he's got it. He's got goat's milk tallow. He's got lemongrass.
He's got orange clove. He's got redacted, which is a really cool soap. I I I'm

(24:06):
I should be getting mine at one point or another, but it's like not it's carbon,
pumice, lye,
beef tallow, and water. I I mean,
the the the other stuff that he's got is tea tree. He's got pine tar tallow soaps. He's got cedarwood. He's got peppermint. He's got lavender.
The man is a one stop shop for soap. Go to soapminer.com,

(24:28):
and if you want 10% off, use the code Bitcoin. And because that tells SoapMiner
that I made a sale for him. And in the value for value advertising model, SoapMiner
then and only then pays me what he thinks that sale was worth to him. Let's move on to absolute and utter stupidity.

(24:48):
Arizona governor has vetoed the bill to stockpile
seized crypto, Martin Young from Cointelegraph.
The governor of Arizona has rejected
a bill that would have seen The United States state hold on to seize crypto assets in a fund.
Arizona governor Katie Hobbs vetoed house bill twenty three twenty four on Tuesday

(25:12):
stating in a letter that it disincentivizes
local enforcement from working with the state on digital asset forfeiture
by removing seized assets from local jurisdictions.
It's a fucking mafia.
Amen.
As a street boss, you know, your highness,
our neighborhood over here, we were stealing that money fair and square. You just you as the big boss, you just taking it away from us. We don't wanna work the streets anymore for you, boss.

(25:43):
That that's exactly what this shit is. This is just street level mafia bullshit.
Anyway, the state's house voted the bill down during its third reading in May, but the senate revived it in a reconsideration
vote last month, and the measure was then passed by the house in a 34 to 22 vote on June.
The governor's veto could be overridden

(26:05):
with a two thirds vote by both the house and the senate, but that appears unlikely to happen unless some lawmakers switch their vote. The bill would have created a Bitcoin and digital assets reserve fund to manage any digital assets forfeited to the state.
Katie Hobbs' veto letter from h b twenty three twenty four oh, I'm sorry. That god.

(26:28):
I totally
totally wronged on that one and read something I wasn't supposed to read. The bill stipulated that the first $300,000
worth of crypto in a criminal forfeiture
would go to the attorney general's office, and any amount over that would have been split fifty fifty or 50% with the AG and 25%
to the state general fund and 25%

(26:48):
to the new reserve fund.
Hobbs has voted other crypto bills
or vetoed other crypto bills that have made their way through the state's house and senate because in May,
if you remember and I told you about it, she vetoed senate bill ten twenty five, which would have created the Arizona strategic Bitcoin reserve and allowed the state treasurer to invest up to 10% in Bitcoin

(27:12):
saying cryptocurrencies
are, quote,
untested
investments. Yes. That you're so you're much smarter than the guys at BlackRock.
Just you're just brilliant, Katie.
I'm surprised that you're not a trillionaire already. She also vetoed
senate bill thirteen seventy three, a strategic digital asset reserve bill that would have allowed the state to create a treasury from seized assets.

(27:37):
Three crypto bills. Three.
One, two, three bills have now been rejected by the Arizona governor, and only one has made it through.
Arizona house bill twenty seven forty nine
enacted in May,
amend state statutes to integrate crypto assets into Arizona's financial and unclaimed property frameworks by establishing

(27:59):
the Bitcoin and digital assets reserve fund, which is managed by the state treasurer.
And then they start talking about all the other states
and we're gonna talk about one of the other states right now this is one of the states that decided to take a sig out of their holster and load one in the chamber and point it directly to their head

(28:21):
and pull that trigger. Connecticut
has approved a law
prohibiting
crypto use in government.
Yes. You're you're not allowed to use crypto in the government.
This is Cointelegraph.
It's written by Turner Wright.
Connecticut governor Ned Lamont
has signed a bill into law restricting the use of digital assets in state government, including the establishment of a cryptocurrency

(28:48):
reserve.
On Monday, Lamont signed Connecticut House Bill seventy eighty two, which was previously approved by the state's House of Representatives
as well as the Senate.
The legislation specifically prohibits the state government from accepting or requiring payment in the form of virtual currency or

(29:09):
purchasing,
holding, investing in, or establishing
a crypto reserve.
The bill,
introduced in February by state rep Jason Duchette,
also establishes requirements for crypto money transmission licensees
in Connecticut.
The provisions barring the state government from accepting crypto or establishing a digital asset reserve take effect

(29:31):
on October.
And legislation in the Connecticut state government marked a different path from that of several US states exploring the establishment of Bitcoin reserves.
Cointelegraph
reached out to Duschett for comment, but he hadn't said anything.
Brogan Law
founder Aaron Brogan told CoinTelegraph
in June that the bill was a reflection of the divide

(29:54):
between some Democrats and Republicans on digital assets,
likely because of the nationalized
debate with US president Donald Trump's connections to the cryptocurrency industry.
He said the bill would do nothing of substance. Quote,
this is signaling that Connecticut is symbolically
opposed to cryptocurrency
into all the states that have established Bitcoin reserves, said Brogan.

(30:18):
And then they start talking about other United States states, but
we don't need to talk about that. We have numbers to run.
Futures and commodities. But first, Trump announces a Vietnam trade deal. He's slapping a 20% tariff

(30:44):
on Vietnam's imports to The United States.
Yay.
Oil. West Texas Intermediate is up 1.6%
to $66.52.
Brent Norsey up the same to $68.23.
Natural gas, however, is up almost two full points to $3.48
per thousand, and gasoline is up a quarter to $2 and a dime.

(31:07):
Gold and all of its shiny metal brethren are all in the green today.
Gold itself is up a quarter of a point to $33.57
and 3 dimes. Silver is up three quarters of a point. Platinum, however, swing in for the fences
just over 5% in the green. Copper is up two points. Palladium is up 4.75.

(31:29):
Meanwhile,
Ag is mostly in the green today.
Biggest winner looks to be soybeans
one and a quarter to the upside. Biggest loser is
sugar.
One and a half to the downside. Meanwhile, live cattle
crab walking sideways in the red, lean hogs up what is that number?
A quarter percent, and feeder cattle are up point 18%.

(31:53):
Meanwhile, the Dow
is down a tenth of a point, but the S and P is up a quarter, Nasdaq is up a half, and the S and P Mini is up
a third of a point.
Moving on.
Oh, wait a minute. Wait. No. Actually, I no.
I'm sorry. I put this here for a reason.
Before we do Clark Moody, let's talk about this one from William Suber, Cointelegraph.

(32:18):
Bitcoin squeezes shorts in a 108,000
spike as The United States
jobs report
drops most in two
years.
By the way, we are now at a 109,560.
You're gonna ask why is this important?
Just hang on because the jobs report is a deal. Alright. So

(32:42):
Bitcoin touched a 108,000
at the July
as a major miss
in United States employment
sparked volatility.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed Bitcoin up 2% on the day and gains accompanied a surprise reaction
in private sector payrolls data, which came in

(33:05):
33,000
lower in June to hit its lowest level since March of twenty twenty three.
Estimates from management firm, Automatic Data Processing, which compiled the data in its national employment report,
has seen an increase of nearly
100,000,
quote,
though layoffs continue to be rare,

(33:27):
a hesitancy to hire and a reluctance to replace departing workers
led to job losses last month, ADP chief economist Nela Richardson
commented,
ahead
of US non farm payrolls data, which is due to be released July, crypto market commentators were optimistic.

(33:49):
Labor market weakness, they noted, increased the odds of Federal Reserve interest rates coming sooner
rather than later, a key source of liquidity injections for Bitcoin, altcoins,
and the raft that we know as risk assets. Quote, Fed rate cuts are becoming increasingly
likely in July.

(34:11):
Andre Dragosz, European head of research at crypto asset manager
Bitwise wrote
in part of a response
on Twitter.
As Cointelegraph
continues to report, Fed officials resistance to rate cuts has spawned pushback from Washington, including
from Donald Trump himself who this week demanded that rates fall to 1%

(34:31):
or lower
oh my god
could you imagine a move from four and a half 4.25
to four and a half percent which is what we got right now
to fall all in one shot to 1%.
You wanna talk about $220,000
Bitcoin? That that would do it. Actually, that would probably go to a quarter million. Anyway,

(34:53):
the latest data from CME Group's FedWatch tool
shows market sentiment unchanged
by the ADP numbers with the Fed September meeting still the favorite
for the next cut being unveiled.
Yeah. Don't hold your breath.
Don't hold your breath. We're gonna have to wait and see because
I talked about it yesterday.

(35:14):
Jerome Powell's got all the ammunition that he needs. Even with the weak jobs report, he still is sitting in the catbird seat
being able to tell Donald Trump to go sit and spin or pound sand or shove your thumb up your ass, whichever way you wanna go. He's got
he has the creds at this point to say, nope. We're not cutting.

(35:37):
And one single jobs report, in my opinion, is not enough
to change his mind,
but he may. You never know. Anyway, we got a we got Orange Coin at a 109,400.
That is a $2,180,000,000,000
market cap, and we can get 32.6
ounces of shiny metal rocks with our one Bitcoin of which there are 19,886,316

(36:00):
of. And average fees per block are low,
0.03
BTC taking the fees on a per block basis.
There are all of two blocks
carrying 3,700
unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 3 Satoshis per vbyte.
Low priority is gonna get you in at one.

(36:20):
And mining has dropped a little bit. We're back down to 875.2
exahashes per second. Most likely, it's because the heat bubble just will not move. It's unrelenting.
And from what I understand, it moved from the Southeast and East Coast,
moved West into the Midwest,
and it looks like Texas is baking in the sun.

(36:43):
That's the one part of Texas that I don't miss is the summers. I've always hated the summers.
I just I mean, it's like I I loved them as a kid because I was out of school and I and when you're a kid you don't notice the heat.
But when you're past the age of 25, you know, a 106 degrees feels pretty freaking awful.

(37:05):
It just does. Makes me wait for an easy breezy, which was the name of Bitcoin and yesterday's show,
Turkey with 5,000 said something.
He says the turkey has left the roost.
I'll be back next week. See you later, turkey. Safe travels.
Don't get baked.

(37:27):
Okay. Well, progressively worse with five fifty five says, here's a little boosty boost to go alongside the other boosting boosters that have boosted many boosts.
Boost. Yodle with five eleven had something good to say earlier but forgot.
Hi, everybody.
FOMO chronic with three twenty has a couple of emojis.
God's death with 237

(37:48):
says, thankin' you, sir.
He actually spells it thanking you. Thanking you.
Thanking stine.
I might have to play with that a little bit. Anyway, that's that that that's the weather report.

(38:09):
Welcome to part two of the news that you can use,
and Deutsche Bank is back in the news.
Deutsche Bank's DWS
Galaxy
Flowtrader's
venture to introduce German
regulated
stablecoin.
Yeah. There you go. Ian Allison's
got it for CoinDesk, a joint venture

(38:32):
between Deutsche Bank's,
asset management subsidiary, DWS,
Flowtraders,
and Galaxy
said that it will issue Germany's first regulated
euro denominated
stablecoin
after receiving an e money institution license from the Federal Financial Supervisory

(38:52):
Authority, also known as Boffin,
this week.
The all unity,
e u r a u,
Eura u. Eura
u.
Euro Euro.
Euro. The all Unity Euro. My god almighty, these names. The all Unity Euro stablecoin, which will comply with Europe's markets and crypto assets or MICA framework, was tested by the companies back in December of twenty twenty three. Wow.

(39:23):
Eiryu or Eiryu or whatever will be 100%
collateralized
and deliver institutional
grade transparency
through proof of reserves, oh, interesting, and regulatory reporting,
according to a release.
The token can be used for twenty four seven instant cross border settlements, seamless integration for related financial institutions, fintechs,

(39:45):
treasuries, and enterprise clients all across Europe and beyond, all Unity said.
The stablecoin joins a growing number of Euro peg tokens,
including those that have popped up since MICA took effect about a year ago. They include Circle's,
eurc,
and Society Generals'

(40:05):
EURCV
alongside MICA compliant dollar coins such as SocGen's
USD CV and Robinhood's
backed global dollar USDG.
Good lord.
The acronym.
Speaking about securing an EMI license from Bofin, Alexander Hoeppner,

(40:26):
CEO of All Unity, said in a statement, quote, this license is not just a regulatory hurdle cleared. It's a foundational step towards building a truly secure, transparent, and compliant
digital cross border payment ecosystem for Europe and the global markets, end quote.
And that's it. So Deutsche
Bank, on the on the heels of yesterday's news of, you know, custodying Bitcoin for clients is now getting into this

(40:53):
is immediately jumping into the stable coin pool
with their subsidiary. It'll be an interesting play.
And,
again,
you know, not not to beat a dead horse, but
the question becomes,
will Tether
will Tether bend the knee to MICA

(41:13):
and become MICA compliant and hold 60% of their reserves in European central banks
so that they can have Tether
as part of a MICA compliant stablecoin ecosystem in Europe?
I I actually hope not.
I really hope they don't. I hope they go after the rest of the world. Let's circle have The United States

(41:34):
and and and Europe
because the world is an awfully big place.
And the honestly,
there's more growth
outside
of the West
than there is inside the West.
If you want to bet on horses, I wouldn't bet on the crippled one is all I'm saying.
I mean, you know, I gotta be truthful here.

(41:57):
Bank of Korea has suspended their own CBDC project as won backed stablecoins
gain momentum.
Atlas twenty one is gonna tell us all about it. The Bank of Korea has announced the temporary
suspension of its CBDC
project.
According to Yonhap News, the central bank recently informed

(42:17):
participating banks
in the Hanggang
sorry. Excuse me. The Hangang
CBDC
project of its decision to postpone
discussions
on the second phase of the digital currency testing.
The pause comes less than three months after the pilot program's launch. So three months and they're already, like, going, dude, stablecoins.

(42:39):
Anyway, it involved a 100,000 citizens
using the CBDC
with local merchants and partnerships with the company's or the country's major banks.
The first phase of the pilot is expected to conclude by the end of this month. The Bank of Korea's decision coincides with growing interest in stablecoins pegged to the local currency.

(43:00):
Newly elected president Lee Jae myung
has pledged to legalize the issuance of won backed stablecoins,
which are currently banned,
and to foster a domestic market for these digital assets to help prevent capital flight.
Min Byung Kyok,
a lawmaker
from the ruling party has who led digital asset policy during the presidential campaign,

(43:24):
has proposed legislation to establish a licensing framework and regulatory requirements
for potential stablecoin issuers.
Kakao and Naver,
South Korea's two largest
technology firms,
have filed trademark applications for stablecoins
via their mobile payment platforms. God, this is gonna get so weird so fast.

(43:47):
According to local sources,
eight of the country's top banks are reportedly planning a joint venture to issue a won back stablecoin.
Despite the CBDC's
project suspension,
the Bank of Korea has expressed a favorable stance towards won denominated stablecoins.
Governor Lee Chang yong stated that he needs

(44:09):
rather, he sees a need for such assets
provided that adequate risk management measures are in place.
One factor behind the decision to suspend the CBDC
initiative
was the financial burden on participating
banks.
According to reports,
the pilot program imposed,

(44:29):
oh my god, significant costs on local institutions,
particularly
in the absence of a concrete implementation
plan.
On average,
each of the seven participating
banks spent 5,000,000,000
won, which is about $3,700,000
US,
on the project.

(44:50):
You know what that means.
But even banks don't
don't they all they all know that they cannot compete
at on the technology
side.
They were doing these institutions,
they were doing well to try to keep up with, you know, Internet routings

(45:12):
and switches
and servers and server rooms and the air conditioning cost and buying power stuff. I mean, there there's a whole host of shit that goes on
behind the scenes when an institution
of any size
has to not only come into the computer age,
but remain there.

(45:33):
It takes an entire IT department.
Did you know that there was no such thing as an IT department in most companies
not more than thirty years ago?
Literally,
thirty years ago, a great majority of companies,
if you include all of them, small to medium to large,
did not really jack around with IT.

(45:56):
You know, they have Bob in the corner office. Hey. Bob knows about computers.
That's not the way this shit works anymore. And these guys, I guarantee you, their IT departments are struggling
trying to keep up with
without even thinking about money,
without even thinking about Bitcoin or stable coins or CBDCs
or nothing like that yet. Right? They're they're doing well to keep their servers from catching on fire

(46:21):
and destroying customer data.
They're making sure their email server is up. That
they're having problems.
I guarantee you there had there are groups of people that are exhausted trying to keep up with all this shit. And then you gotta go and and get new equipment, which means that you have to evaluate new equipment. Eval and and it it's a lot of strain.

(46:43):
And now
now you're asking them
to jump into CBDCs,
stablecoins,
and the world that we exist in. We built this fucking thing
while everybody was pointing at us and laughing, and now they can't keep up.
Governments

(47:04):
can't keep up.
Lawmakers
can't keep up. The people that want to censor
both our money and our words
have no fucking hope of keeping up.
None of these people are prepared for what's coming.
None of them. And I'm here for it. Moving on to Thesis.

(47:26):
Thesis acquires Lolli, l o l l I,
to expand their Bitcoin rewards ecosystem.
Lolli, it was nice knowing
you. I've been with Lolli for a long time. I've I've had their their browser extension active in my browser for a long time. I was getting Bitcoin back on purchases

(47:47):
every time that they had a vendor that participated in their program, and now Thesis has bought them out.
Juan Gault, Bitcoin Magazine.
Thesis,
a Bitcoin focused venture studio,
announced its acquisition of Lolli, a Bitcoin rewards platform in a move

(48:08):
to integrate it with its broader ecosystem of companies such as Fold,
Mezzo,
and TBTC.
Jesus. They've got Fold too.
The announcement outlines plans to enhance consumer Bitcoin experiences through expanded rewards and brand new partnerships.
Wall E, founded in 2018,

(48:28):
claims to have rewarded
over 600,000
users with more than $20,000,000
worth of Bitcoin through shopping at 50,000
stores
and playing 1,000
plus mobile games.
Wally's platform is designed to make Bitcoin accessible
by offering cash back and rewards for everyday activities.

(48:49):
Thesis,
operating since 2014,
has built Bitcoin native projects like Fold,
which recently became a publicly traded Bitcoin financial services company under the leadership of Matt Lugano, its CEO,
and Fold's cofounder.
Quote,
having competed alongside Lolli for years, I've admired their ability to onboard users through accessible and engaging experiences.

(49:14):
At Thesis, we believe Bitcoin's real growth is driven by everyday interactions,
shopping, gaming, spending,
not just investment portfolios,
said Lugano,
who will now lead Lolli's next phase. He added that Lolli's user base and rewards model align with its vision
of driving Bitcoin adoption through practical use cases.

(49:37):
Lolli's founder and former CEO, Alex Adleman, added, quote,
we are excited to join forces with Thesis to power the next phase of Bitcoin adoption through rewards with Lolli.
Thesis brings both deep infrastructure expertise and a shared vision, enabling us to significantly enhance our platform,
end quote.

(49:57):
Thesis believes this acquisition will address fragmentation in the Bitcoin consumer experience
by uniting Lolli's rewards
with Fold's financial services and its broader ecosystem.
Thesis outlines several planned upgrades for Lolli under Lugano's leadership it intends
to enhance the arcade and daily stack features with more games, quests,

(50:21):
larger rewards.
A new Lolli market is in development, which seeks to offer more brands,
higher cashback rates, and global accessibility.
Thesis
plans to introduce instant reward payouts later in 2025,
responding to user demand for faster redemptions.
Additionally,
Lolli will collaborate with Fold on an expanded gift card marketplace to increase earning opportunities.

(50:47):
For global reach, Lolli is now developing an international expansion strategy to bring Bitcoin rewards beyond The United States.
To support these changes,
Thesis plans to migrate Lolli to a more scalable infrastructure.
The company claims that this will strengthen Lolli's ability to onboard new users and handle increased activity.

(51:09):
Thesis sees this acquisition as a step towards a circular Bitcoin economy where earning and spending Bitcoin are seamless.
It hopes that the integration of Lolli with Fold,
Mezzo, and TBTC
will close the gap between Bitcoin rewards and everyday use,
making adoption easier

(51:31):
for millions.
So this is actually a lot bigger news than than I initially thought.
Fold, Mezzo,
TBTC,
and now Lolli under the same umbrella and all working together if they can pull that off because it's hard to bring teams that
didn't build something together

(51:51):
together and have them actually work
together
for a common
mission
that they're all engaged in. It's it's difficult. It's it's a hard thing to do. However, if they pull this shit off,
thesis is gonna be is gonna be a large
it's gonna be a thing to contend with for other people.

(52:13):
I honestly, I I I think this is good news. If they if they don't screw this up,
this could be fairly large.
Which brings us to the end of today's show. Wallet of Satoshi partners with Spark
to offer self custodial
Bitcoin lightning experience.
Wallet of Satoshi seems to be coming back.

(52:35):
Oh, baby.
Oscar Perez also for Bitcoin Magazine.
Today,
Spark has announced
a brand spanking new integration with Wallet of Satoshi, one of the largest Bitcoin Lightning wallets
to bring users
a truly
self custodial Lightning experience.
It's in beta according to a press release

(52:56):
sent to Bitcoin magazine. Quote, from the start, Spark
felt like the missing piece, stated Wallida Satoshi. Quote, it gave us the foundation to explore self custody
seriously,
abstracting away the complex parts of self custody so that we could stay focused on user experience.
Being self custodial,

(53:18):
this will allow customers to have full control over their Bitcoin.
In November of twenty twenty four, Walletist Satoshi
removed its app from The United States Apple and Google app stores
for unspecified
reasons.
Although likely due to an unfavorable regulatory environment which
was environment, which was cracking down on lightning wallets at the time.

(53:40):
But now that the regulatory
landscape has changed in The United States, Wallet and Satoshi
stated this integration will unlock the ability to reenter
and serve The United States market.
Wallet and Satoshi also faced limitations
when developing self self custodial Lightning Wallet, such as liquidity requirements,

(54:01):
node complexity,
channel management cost. It all made it difficult to build a truly self custodial l n wallet, but now
Spark has provided them a solution. Quote,
we built Spark specifically
to solve this exact problem, the company stated.
Spark abstracts away
all of the complexity

(54:21):
for wallets looking to implement Lightning.
You don't need to spin up channels
worry about routing,
pre funding liquidity,
or even think about managing nodes. Creating a lightning wallet on Spark takes less than six lines of code,
end quote. Wow.
Spark stated that it will continue building out new features as the product evolves, and those interested in joining the beta can leave a comment on their ex post requesting to join.

(54:48):
On May,
Breeze and Spark partnered to launch a new implementation of the Breeze SDK
built on Spark's Bitcoin native layer two infrastructure.
The SDK supports l n URL, lightning addresses, real time mobile notifications,
and includes bindings for all major programming languages and frameworks.

(55:08):
The collaboration gave developers tools to add Bitcoin payment features to apps used for monetization
of social apps,
cross border remittances, and in game currencies.
One day earlier,
Spark also partnered with Magic Eden to improve Bitcoin trading by addressing issues like slow transaction times,

(55:29):
high fees, and poor user experience, the integration introduced a native settlement system
aimed at making transactions faster and more cost effective without using bridges
or synthetic assets.
So
spark
is all over the place
and this is the second story where we're actually seeing a lot of partnerships starting to form again and

(55:54):
we see this I've I see this in cycles
in in the general Bitcoin cycles after
you know and I'm not going to say that this bull run is over I I actually
I don't want to say it either way I mean this is not all that important
But there are times during cycles where you get a bunch of of companies that kinda do similar things, and all of a sudden they kinda collapse into each other and form like a bigger thing. It's sort of like the event horizon of a black hole. You just need to lose a little bit of velocity to fall into

(56:28):
the black hole itself and become something different.
And it looks like we are in that phase of the cycle again.
And
good. I mean well, I mean,
competition is always good, but
one of the ways that people regulate
competition is by either buying somebody or for forming a merger with somebody else.

(56:50):
It's not always about we have to be enemies.
It's not always about we have competing products that do the exact same thing so we're going to, I don't know, tell everybody on social media that you suck and we're great. But there's a lot of times when companies look at each other and go, you know,
you guys are really good at doing this.
We're really good at doing this.

(57:11):
If we were to have a little party together,
we might find that we have a lot more to offer each other than being straight up competitors.
Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's bad. And when it gets bad is when there's so much conglomeration
that you get, like, two companies that collapse into each other and then, you know, two other companies collapse into each other and then those two entities come together and what was four now becomes one and what was eight becomes one and

(57:41):
do the math. It becomes geometric.
And then you start getting into things like behemoths,
like Coca Cola,
Johnson and Johnson.
That's this that happened.
That's how those companies
got where they are. That's why they're so big, and in my opinion, completely
unmanageable.

(58:01):
There's a reason why insects don't
become
giants.
I've I've talked about this before, but I I think it I think I should bring it up again.
There there is a
there's a sweet spot for everything
relative
not only to its size, but to its environment.

(58:24):
Its size is con size of a creature is connected to its environment for various reasons.
In the insect world, like when you were a kid or when some of us were kids, we saw dinosaur books.
And if they were written before, I don't know, nineteen
nineteen
eighty,
sometimes they'd have a depiction of a giant dragonfly

(58:45):
that was like four foot long and, you know, weighed like 12 pounds or something like that. It's bullshit.
Insects cannot grow that big, and there's a reason why. They don't have lungs.
Blue whales and elephants
are maxing out a single creature's
size
specifications

(59:06):
when it comes to the environment on Earth, both terrestrial
and in the sea.
But they got lungs. They they've got beating hearts that pump oxygenated
blood like material around their tissues so that necrosis
or tissue death doesn't start happening.
Right? There's active

(59:26):
maneuvering going on there. But in an insect
in an insect,
you can only get so big because there's no lungs
and there's no there there may be a kind of like a a like a little bit of a heartbeat kind of thing, but it's not not really. It's just
maybe there's a, like, a foe circulatory system, but not not like what we're talking about, like, with a human or a squirrel or an elephant.

(59:49):
Right?
All of but it still needs oxygen.
Alright? So
how the hell do do you make sure that you don't get cell death because you're starving cells of oxygen in something that doesn't have lungs
and almost no circulatory system whatsoever?
Diffusion.
Gas diffusion.

(01:00:11):
An insect size
is mediated
not only by its shape
and the amount of surface area that it has as a relation
temperatures does it normally, you know, encounter? What pressure does it normally encounter? You know why you don't see insects at high altitudes?

(01:00:35):
Can't survive there.
They cannot survive there. There's not enough oxygen to diffuse through their
whatever their outside layer is
into the juicy body bits
that oxygenate all the cells of their body.
That's why you don't see mosquitoes pass, I don't know, what, like 10,000,
12,000 feet, whatever. There's a limit. Right? There's a limit to the smallest insect.

(01:00:58):
And you'll and as you move up in altitude,
small it's the smaller and smaller insects where the larger and larger insects are able to exist,
you know, all the way down to sea level because there's enough pressure
to force oxygen
into the volume of the body.
I look at that
as a metaphor or a model that we should look at companies.

(01:01:22):
If the company gets too big
and it does not have good functional circulation,
in this case of information and possibly even cash flow, which is another type of information.
And it doesn't have,
like, a mechanical way to ingest
the gases that it needs needs. In this case, let's let's call it, again,

(01:01:45):
information
and
money,
right,
it's then it it's going to start faltering. It's going to start dying. And that's what I see happening with things like Unilever,
Johnson and Johnson, Coca Cola, PepsiCo,
the you know, basically, the food companies.
Even the banking companies are getting so big that they that one side has literally no idea what the other side is doing. So you got JPMorgan

(01:02:11):
that sends sends different messages.
We love Bitcoin. Well, except Jamie Dimon comes out and says
the government's gonna shut Bitcoin down in ten years.
But
they offer Bitcoin services. It doesn't make any sense.
That's
not exactly
the the way that I'm thinking when when companies falter. Generally speaking, it's it usually starts in customer service,

(01:02:36):
I e terrible customer service. That's when you really know that a company is getting way too big
because customer service starts to become,
I don't know, like an add on and not a primary driver of the future of your business, which it is.
If somebody's not happy with your service or product, you better fucking address it.

(01:02:57):
Otherwise, they're gonna go find somebody else. But when you're AT and T,
you don't have a whole lot of options, ladies and gentlemen. And even if you do
even if you do, AT and T has got such so much of the market.
They don't need to worry about their customer service as much as, I don't know, MCI would have had to or Sprint

(01:03:19):
has to now. And even they suck at it
because they're big enough to suck at it. So
what I'm getting at is that we're seeing the same kind of consolidation
that any other industry sees.
It's that's a fight for efficiency, but in that fight for efficiency,
you start getting shitty customer service.

(01:03:39):
So if you're a Bitcoiner out there and you're looking at saying, hey, I loved Lolli. I loved Fold. And now they're what? Gonna be under one umbrella? If they start screwing up customer service, you need to be very loud
about how they're screwing up their customer service.
Otherwise,
we're gonna end up with the AT and T of Bitcoin,
and nobody

(01:04:01):
nobody wants that. I'll see you on the other side.
This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.

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