This was a fantastic conversation: View quoted note →

In case you missed it, within the last week, Strategy diluted MSTR by another ~$750m worth of shares so that they could buy more... well, nothing... they just kept the dollars - and increased their dollar reserve by another ~50%. That being said, I get why they're doing it: so that they can give credibility to their recently stated intention to continue to pay preferred stock dividends well into the future almost no matter what. Here's the kicker: The vast majority of their past few issuances of preferred stock has been in STRD. At current prices, they could raise ~38% more capital by instead issuing the same quantity of STRF shares. They come with the same dividend obligation - except that STRD comes with the option for Strategy to choose to just not ever pay any particular dividend. So, to me, by raising less capital to issue STRD than they would by issuing STRF, this signals that when Strategy says they're stock-piling dollars to ensure they can continue to pay dividends long into the future, that doesn't necessarily apply to STRD dividends (because if it did, they'd clearly be better off by just issuing STRF instead).

Pretty good discussion by @Bitcoin Mechanic; but, I have a slightly different take. It seems to me it is potentially even more damaging to privacy software development to necessarily conflate that with the Samourai case at all. Rationalize their reasons for pleading guilty all you want, the bottom line is they pleaded guilty (admitted to the court) to more than just writing software. Did the prosecution actually have any evidence of this? Were they coerced? Unfortunately, because of the guilty pleas - thus, removing the onus on the prosecution to even present its case to the court, the public will never know for sure what we don't know. I have no problem with those who advocate for their release. But, trying to scare an entire privacy software development community into thinking that they'll be next unless Samourai are released is just not productive, IMO.

The problem with those who think they understand Bitcoin - but have concluded it's too late for them to start now - is that they still don't even understand fiat. View quoted note →

So... apparently the government will be investing in the S&P 500 on behalf of newborn citizens. Private funds blindly propping up the top 500 companies isn't ideal, but people are free to do what they want with their money in the market. The thumb of public funds being pressed down onto that scale is just disgusting. View quoted note →

Serious question: Investopedia defines NAV (Net Asset Value) as NAV = Assets - Liabilities But, with respect to Bitcoin Treasury Companies, MNAV (Market Net Asset Value - apparently not yet recognized by Investopedia) is typically defined as some form of MNAV = (Market Cap + Liabilities) / Bitcoin Holdings. What gives? If the denominator is only assets, then what's being netted? It seems to me Market Cap / (Bitcoin Holdings - Liabilities) would make way more intuitive sense. If a company borrows a bunch of money to buy that same amount in Bitcoin the Net Assets is unchanged; and so MNAV should remain unchanged. Instead, by moving liabilities to the numerator, every time a company borrows more money to buy that same amount in Bitcoin it serves to move MNAV closer to 1.0. PS. I haven't figured out how (or even if) this works out to benefit Treasury Companies. It just seems like an unnecessary distortion that has to be intentional.