🤣

On days like this I sometimes get a message from friends or family thanking me for helping them understand bitcoin. I read the awful economic news and so many people are suffering. It feels good to be able to help people. I continue to see how bitcoin is the great reset. Big Wall Street BSDs, or those who have benefited from the current system usually don’t “get” bitcoin. Their big egos won’t let them do the work to understand.

It’s interesting how little the halving matters this year. Dropping from 900 or 450 bitcoin a day pales to the thousands of bitcoin a day being sucked up by the ETFs. A bigger factor to price (than the halving) might be the long bear market and the fact that most coins are now in strong hodlr hands. There will need to be a big jump in price to entice some of these people to sell. Every time someone says I should sell some I’m reminded that everything else is a shitcoin and why would I sell the best asset for something lesser?

Me: Fees are too expensive now on Lightning. We need to move your bitcoin to Liquid. Them: Why is Lightning raising fees? I thought you said that this is how we can pay for coffee using bitcoin. Me: People are bidding a lot for block space on the main chain and that’s causing Lightning to be more expensive. Them: I don’t understand. I already deposited my bitcoin into my Lightning account. Why do I need to pay more fees? Me: It’s not actually an account. It’s a channel-based system… Actually, never mind. We should just move the sats. Them: If we move to Liquid, are they going to raise fees later too? Me: Maybe. Hard to predict but there is no point to staying with Lightning now. Soon your entire balance will be eaten by fees. Them: Ok, let’s do it. I have my bitcoin in Muun right now. I’ll send my full balance. Me: No, don’t. We’ll need to try different transfer amounts to try to minimize fees. Fees can be nonlinear. Them: Sorry, what? Me: Nevermind, I’ll do it for you. There, done. I was able to move everything except $3. Which seems trapped in Muun. Maybe we’ll be able to move it in the future. Them: wow, that was expensive. I just lost 20% of my bitcoin in the transfer. Me: :(

Reading all the clever responses to the pizza lady is making me hurt 😆 😂 😂

Somebody once asked me whether regulators were scared that bitcoin would contribute to inflation. Without thinking too deeply about it, I said no. Now I think my answer may be incorrect. Perhaps it’s possible that bitcoin, especially in the form of an ETF, could contribute to inflation. As we know, an increase in the money supply drives inflation. Banks create base money out of thin air when they issue loans. Will the ETF drive more loans and therefore more base money? Now I think it might. Shares of an ETF might be margin-eligible making it easy to borrow money with the shares as collateral. MicroStrategy has been borrowing money to buy bitcoin and short the dollar. The ETF might make this strategy accessible to almost everyone. These new loans might increase base money and inflation, creating a reflexive feedback loop. As the price of bitcoin rises, more people will borrow money on margin, creating more inflation and a higher bitcoin price. Could the ETF be the Trojan horse that consumes the financial system from the inside? 🤔

The worst part of the whole sordid Epstein saga is how Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, who was apparently a frequent guest of Epstein, crafted a “no prosecution agreement” with the US government. This indicates that elements of the US government knew what Epstein was doing, and protected him from prosecution. I admire the courage that Giuffre had to speak out publicly. She must have legit feared that she would increment the Clinton body count.

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There is probably a law that all custodians will take greater risk in the quest for higher revenues until they eventually blow up.