🧠Quote of the week:

“If you get sad when the price of Bitcoin goes down it shows that fiat matters to you. If you get happy when the price of Bitcoin goes down it shows that BTC matters to you.” BTC_for_Freedom

Bitcoin news🧡

➡️ Libertarian and pro-Bitcoin candidate, Javier Milei, has taken a commanding lead in the Argentinian primary elections:

“Se les termina el chiste de la maquinita” “The fuckery of their money printer is coming to an end”

Great video:

“In the video, he believes that:

-The central bank is a scam controlled by politicians with inflationary taxes.

-Bitcoin represents the return of money to the private sector creator.

-Bitcoin is safer to transact than silver & gold.

-Bitcoin’s algorithm caps its supply & prevents inflation.

-Governments won’t give up their fiat currency.

-Bitcoin is the natural reaction to put money back in the hands of the people.

-He concludes that it’s time to shut down the central banks.”

Argentina’s inflation is already at 114% and its population is looking for answers.

Bitcoin is about to break through the 10,000,000 Argentinian Pesos milestone, having increased by over 85X since 2019!

➡️ SEC approves 2x leveraged Bitcoin futures ETF but DENIES spot ETF

➡️HODLers have never had more conviction Long-Term Holder supply just hit a record-breaking 75% of circulating supply (14.59Mn) while volatility is at an all-time low. Diamond hands!

➡️ All the CrYpTo influencers came out with the news that PayPal will launch a stablecoin on Ethereum, citing a ‘shift toward digital currencies’. Explaining how great this would be. How this is another example of the use case for Ethereum.

Even here in the Netherlands, some platforms shared the news as if it was a big thing & a good thing.

They, shitcoin lovers/crypto influencers, forget to mention that PayPal stablecoin gives the company the ability to freeze and wipe your assets.

So-called “stablecoins” are permissioned fiat, corporate versions of CBDC.

“The new Paypal USD stablecoin has an “assetProtection” role which can wipe your balance in two transactions (first `freeze`, then `wipeFrozenAddress`) In smart contract security we call this a “centralization attack vector”.

➡️ A new peer-reviewed piece highlights how Bitcoin mining could help renewables and drive decarbonization of the grid. The study highlights Bitcoin’s positive impact as “a potential contributor to renewable energy penetration and net decarbonization of the energy grid.”

Funny isn’t it that the (negative) narrative around Bitcoin completely shifted after BlackRock etc. made it clear they wanted to invest in Bitcoin BlackRock insiders say spot Bitcoin ETF approval is expected in “four to six months”.

Roughly two months before the halving.

Meanwhile, another paper coming from the mainstream media in favor of Bitcoin Mining. “Bitcoin has transitioned from being an energy waste to a potential asset (at least in public view).”

You can read the full paper here: www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/14/3/35

➡️ Currently, 13.3M hodlers (1+ year) control the supply against 6.1M (Less than 1+ year). Never have we seen such a wide discrepancy between these two cohorts.

➡️ Bitcoin mining firm Core Scientific will exit bankruptcy proceedings amid a $77mn deal with Bitmain. Bitmain will acquire a $54 million stake in CS in exchange for 27,000 Antminers. ➡️ In 2022, Bitcoin has processed over $8.2 trillion in transactions, or $260,000 every second. VISA processed less than $6 trillion in transactions, while Mastercard – only $2.5 trillion

➡️ Chairman of $385B Private Equity Group: “The mighty BlackRock is willing to have a Bitcoin ETF, maybe Bitcoin is going to be around for a while.”

➡️ Number of Bitcoin addresses holding 1+ and 0.1+ bitcoins both just reached an all-time high…

➡️ Which countries have the Lightning nodes with the most Bitcoin?

🇺🇸387.33 Bitcoin 🇨🇭94.98 Bitcoin 🇩🇪85.76 Bitcoin

➡️ Coinbase becomes the first publicly traded company to launch its own decentralized blockchain, Base. Now read that out loud, but very slowly. Especially the bit: ITS OWN DECENTRALIZED…OWN

➡️ The BMC estimates the YoY Bitcoin hash rate increased +70%, efficiency +24%, and sustainable energy mix improved to 59.9% based upon H1 2023 survey results of BMC members representing 43% of the worldwide mining network. bitcoinminingcouncil.com/bitcoin-mining-council-survey-confirms-year-on-year-improvements-in-sustainable-power-and-technological-efficiency-in-h1-2023

➡️ In the 2nd quarter, Riot was able to bring down their average cost to mine 1 Bitcoin to $8,389.

🏦Banks:

👉🏽Last week I mentioned the following quote by Joe Consorti:

“The Fed’s BTFP facility is $105.6 billion in size. Unrealized losses on US Treasuries total $1.1 trillion. That means roughly 1/10th of duration losses caused by the Fed’s rate hikes are being papered over. That’s a pretty big band-aid.”

The Fed’s BTFP facility has now risen to another all-time high of $106.86 billion in outstanding emergency loans.

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

👉🏽 “US inflation a tad lower than what economists expected:

US July CPI accelerates to 3.2% YoY from 3% in June vs 3.3% expected, BUT the first acceleration after 12 consecutive months of decline. Core CPI slows to 4.7% YoY from 4.8% in June as expected. Shelter costs contributed to about 90% of the increase in July CPI. Fed Swaps price in lower odds (20%) of another rate hike this year.”

👉🏽 “In August 2022, the US Senate passed a bill to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to investigate citizens’ finances. In November 2022, the US Pentagon failed its fifth consecutive audit, unable to account for 61% of its $3.5 trillion in assets.”

Let that sink in for a minute. (Source Watcher Guru)

👉🏽 I have shared numerous times the great analyzes made by ‘The Kobeissi Letter’. They are always right on point concerning the US debt spiral & deficits and the markets in general.

Last week they came up with the following tweets: “The US government has spent an alarming $6.7 trillion over the last 12 months. This is up 14% since last year and just shy of the $7.6 trillion record during 2020. We are now spending just $900 billion less than a period when $4 trillion was handed out. The worst part? Over the last 12 months, the US deficit is at $1.4 trillion. This is up $1 TRILLION compared to last year. Simply put, this is unsustainable.”

It is a wrecking ball and it can’t be stopped.

👉🏽 “Interest rates on a 30-year mortgage are now at their highest in 23 years. New homebuyers are now spending a record 40% of their income on a mortgage. Meanwhile, the median sales price of a home in the US is at 560% of the median annual income.”

Again, unsustainable.

👉🏽 “In the US, interest rates on household items are skyrocketing. In just 1 year, the average interest rate on credit card debt has gone from 14% to 21%+. New car loan rates went from 4% to 8% while used car loan rates are at 12%+. Mortgage rates are at a fresh high of 7.2%, up from 2.7% in 2021. How can the average person afford any of these items?”

Consumers don’t load up on credit after rates go from 15% → 25% for fun. They do it because they’re running out of money.

👉🏽 The US just published their budget numbers showing a $221 BILLION deficit in July alone. With $276 billion in receipts, the US spent a massive $497 billion last month. Total interest on US debt YTD is now at $726 BILLION. Deficts are always a spending problem.

👉🏽 “The Congressional Budget Office, using *generous* inflation & interest rate forecasts, is openly projecting deficits as a % of GDP to rise every year this decade, while debt/GDP rises to 200% by 2050.” – Dylan LeClair

👉🏽Bonds are no longer the safe option – Financial Times

👉🏽 “Where other countries are fighting inflation, China has entered full deflation mode! CPI -0.3% PPI -4.4%.” -Jeroen Blokland

China sees deflation for the first time since COVID Robin Xing, chief China economist at Morgan Stanley says policymakers “need to accelerate all the government spending, raising government debt to break this debt deflation trap.”

👉🏽 “The bond market is telling the Fed it’s done with rate hikes. There’s just a 15% chance of a September rate hike being priced into fed funds futures and a 21% chance of one in November. The Fed is now expected to start cutting rates in early 2024, according to market pricing”

Great timing, exactly when the Bitcoin Halving starts!

I want to end this weekly recap with a great tweet by Sam Callahan:

“A recent audit of the Bank of Lebanon showed:

1.) Officials likely embezzled over $300 million to family members and close associates

2.) They implemented a nationally-regulated Ponzi scheme to explode the national debt

3.) They hid $76 billion in losses from the Ponzi scheme by cooking their books, failing to meet basic accounting standards Meanwhile, the Lebanese pound has lost 98% of its value against the dollar, inflation sits at 254% YoY, and many Lebanese have been driven into poverty.

Bitcoin is a monetary system that can’t be controlled, manipulated, or abused by a small group of central bankers. Stories like this will soon be a thing of the past.”

Now remember this bank had KYC & AML procedures.

We will see this happen in the future, as the same people want to implement CBDCs.

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: The Relai app is especially suited for beginners or people that want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy.

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Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (Youtube) for more info. ⠀

Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node…be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It’s that simple. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

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