Bitcoin is Freedom I spent the last few weeks in my motherland, Vietnam. The country has transformed since my family escaped in 1978. It is more prosperous, energetic, and ambitious than the Vietnam I left behind. A young population, rising investment, and global aspiration have created extraordinary momentum. And yet one thing remains clear. For many in Vietnam, the ultimate dream is still America. And if they cannot make it to America, they want to wear American brands, eat American food, listen to American music, and exude American confidence. My trip to Vietnam reminded me of this, and the World Cup has made it visible on a global stage. America remains not only a country people admire, but a place people still want to reach, represent, and belong to. The United States remains the land of the free, the Wild Wild West, and the home of the American Dream. Walmart and Waffle House. Boston and Austin. Silicon Valley and Wall Street. A country where people can still rise from welfare to extraordinary success through hard work, ingenuity, risk taking, and some luck. My family experienced that promise directly. We arrived in America as refugees, sponsored by a Catholic church in Syracuse, New York. We received public assistance, food stamps, and free school lunches. My father worked three jobs. We lived frugally and dealt with poverty and racism. America was not easy, but it was open. It gave us a system where effort, education, entrepreneurship, and perseverance could compound. This is America. The world still aspires to be like us. What has made America successful over the last 250 years is not accidental. It is a principled Constitution, geographic scale, abundant resources, and a culture of liberty, capitalism, entrepreneurship, and reinvention. Other nations try to replicate the recipe, but often waver. Interventionism, bureaucracy, corruption, and ego get in the way. Which brings me to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the United States of money. It aspires to do for money what the American Constitution aspired to do for government: create a system governed by transparent rules rather than the discretion of individuals. Built on a principled white paper, digitally enforced scarcity, and proof of work, Bitcoin is digital capital governed by code, energy, and consensus. But beyond that, Bitcoin is hope. It provides hope for those who have worked hard for their money and want to protect it from monetary inflation. It provides hope for those born in countries without reliable rule of law or economic freedoms. It provides hope for anyone seeking protection, opportunity, and a form of property that does not depend on geography, politics, or permission. I was born in the year of America’s bicentennial. Fifty years later, the future of American dominance is being questioned. I have no question. The United States of America is the greatest country in the world. My life is proof of what America makes possible. I left Vietnam as a refugee, grew up poor in America, built a career through education and hard work, and now have a wonderful wife and three children. That is the American Dream to me. It is not just wealth. It is freedom, family, opportunity, and the ability to determine your own future. That is also why Bitcoin resonated with me. I found Bitcoin because it reflected the same principles that shaped my life: clear rules, individual sovereignty, property rights, resilience, open competition, and long-term conviction. America gave my family freedom through a country. Bitcoin offers individuals monetary freedom through a network. One opened the door for me. The other opens a door for anyone, anywhere, to protect the fruits of their labor. That is why Bitcoin is freedom. - Phong Le

Bitcoin exchange rate on July 4: 2013: $80 2014: $630 2015: $260 2016: $683 2017: $2,601 2018: $6,599 2019: $11,198 2020: $9,179 2021: $35,287 2022: $19,293 2023: $30,901 2024: $58,600 2025: $109,000 2026: $62,500

250 years ago a revolution separated church and state. Today a revolution is separating money and state. The ability to transact without government and banking oversight is fundamental to our freedom.

We used to only have millionaires. Then we got billionaires. Now we have trillionaires. Soon we’ll have quadrillionaires. Are we creating more value or just printing more dollars? ~~~ Study bitcoin

From Lawrence Lepard: Bitcoin is a revolution. It is much more than number go up. It is an invention which can free humankind from the long sad history of monetary debasement, which empowers few and taxes everyone else. In a fiat system the wrong people win. We all pay for it. It is unjust and unfair. Throughout all of human history we never had a monetary standard that did not dilute over time. Now we do. Those of us who are partisans and are fighting for it understand the stakes. Freedom, fairness, prosperity, less war, etc. Unsound money is the issue of our age. Currently few see it, but this will change. This Fourth Turning is well on its way and the monetary issue will be resolved. As I observe the current Bitcoin landscape and the attacks on its leaders i am reminded of the opening of Thomas Paine's second writing, The American Crisis. Written in December 1776 after Washington had gotten his ass kicked on Long Island and retreated from Brooklyn and through New Jersey, Paine wrote: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in the crisis, shrink from the service of their country: but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have the consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem to lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value." Sound money has to win. History will be kind to sound money partisans. This is about a lot more than number go up. Don't forget why we are in this fight. Spread the word. The system they run is evil. We know the antidote. Time is on our side.

‘MERKA!

"Bitcoin is too volatile to be real money." Fine. Let's look at the other side of that trade. The Argentine peso has lost over 90% of its value in the last decade. The Turkish lira, the Lebanese pound, the Venezuelan bolivar: each one a "real" currency that wiped out the savings of everyone forced to hold it. Even the U.S. dollar has quietly lost most of its purchasing power since 1971. Bitcoin is volatile up and down on its way up. Fiat is remarkably stable on its way to zero. Volatility you can ride out. A slow, guaranteed bleed you can't. Short-term noise is the cost of owning money they can't print. The "stable" option just takes everything, quietly, instead. — Zach 🧙‍♂️

The first time you help someone set up their own wallet, watch their face. Not when they buy. When they send. That moment they move their own money, to their own keys, and realize no bank approved it, no app could freeze it, and nobody had to say yes. Something shifts. They stop seeing Bitcoin as a number that goes up and down. They start seeing it as theirs. We've watched grandparents do it. Teenagers do it. People who swore they were "not a tech person" do it in about ten minutes. That quiet click of understanding is the whole point. Money you actually own, that answers to you and no one else. You can't hand someone a feeling. But you can hand them the keys, and let them find it themselves.

Dear Fort Bragg City Council, Fort Bragg likely adopted Flock cameras with good intentions—safer neighborhoods. My concern is that few of us are stopping to consider where this path leads. Surveillance capabilities are growing exponentially as AI layers onto cameras, sensors, and databases. A tool that reads license plates today can evolve into one that tracks and profiles people through countless digital signals—phones, smartwatches, vehicle systems—building a remarkably complete picture of someone's life. These changes happen gradually. Each new capability arrives as a small, reasonable upgrade. Viewed individually, they sound harmless. Combined, they become something very different. History shows freedoms are often surrendered one small step at a time. In trying to build a safer society, we risk building one where everyone is monitored by default—without fully realizing it. I hope the Council keeps asking not just what these technologies can do today, but what they may become. Once this infrastructure exists, it's nearly impossible to roll back. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely,

Just in case you hadn’t noticed…

Bitcoin is multifaceted. It’s a censorship-resistant network, a savings tool, a global settlement system, and a hedge against inflation. These different uses don't clash—they actually feed into each other. Whether it’s an activist escaping capital controls, a family protecting their life savings, or a business using Bitcoin on its balance sheet, everyone is tapping into the exact same network and making it stronger. Game-changing tech spreads because of incentives, not ideology. Most of us didn't start using the internet or smartphones because we loved the engineering or shared a philosophy; we used them because they made our lives easier. Bitcoin is no different. Companies aren't going to start exchanging dollars for bitcoin because they're fans of economic theory. They'll do it simply because it's the smartest way to protect their cash. You don't need everyone to agree philosophically to change the world. Every time someone moves capital into Bitcoin, the entire network gets deeper, safer, and more resilient. When millions of regular people, businesses, and institutions voluntarily choose this network over traditional paper money, the power naturally shifts away from political institutions and into a transparent system that anyone can use.

The flag represents different things to different people. For me, I just really like the freedom, decency, shining city on a hill, entrepreneurial, opportunity parts of it.

Dear FlockSafety.com: Please would you stop covering the U.S. with surveillance equipment under the pretense of “safety is a fundamental right” so that we don't end up in a dystopian panopticon like they have in China? Privacy is a human right too. Thanks.

"Official" inflation just came in at 4.2% Here is what the purchasing power of $100K in today’s dollars looks like in the future: 2026: $100,000 2027: $95,800 2028: $91,776 2029: $87,922 2030: $84,229 2031: $80,732 2032: $77,341 2033: $74,113 2034: $71,020 2035: $68,053 2036: $65,219 2037: $62,500 2038: $59,895 2039: $57,394 2040: $54,994 2041: $52,690 2042: $50,485 ← half the value is lost 2043: $48,365 2044: $46,334 2045: $44,392 2046: $42,528 2047: $40,742 2048: $39,031 2049: $37,392 2050: $35,821 2051: $34,316 2052: $32,875 2053: $31,494 2054: $30,171 2055: $28,904 2056: $27,690 2057: $26,527 2058: $25,413 2059: $24,346 2060: $23,323 2061: $22,343 2062: $21,404 2063: $20,505 2064: $19,644 2065: $18,819 2066: $18,029 2067: $17,272 2068: $16,546 2069: $15,851 2070: $15,185 2071: $14,547 2072: $13,936 2073: $13,351 2074: $12,790 2075: $12,253 2076: $11,739 2077: $11,246 2078: $10,774 2079: $10,322 2080: $9,888 2081: $9,473 2082: $9,075 2083: $8,694 2084: $8,329 2085: $7,979 2086: $7,645 2087: $7,324 2088: $7,017 2089: $6,722 2090: $6,440 2091: $6,170 2092: $5,911 2093: $5,663 2094: $5,425 2095: $5,197 2096: $4,979 2097: $4,770 2098: $4,570 2099: $4,378 2100: $4,194 ~~~ Study bitcoin.