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The Latest Bitcoin & Macro news: Weekly Recap 12.08.2024

If you rather want to read the long format outside of Nostr, click here:
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On Nostr:
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🧠Quote(s) of the week:
'People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.' - V -

'A simple plan: Manipulate the data. Manipulate the media. Manipulate the money. A simple response: Resist manipulation and think for yourself.' - James Lavish

🧡Bitcoin news🧡
The UK is losing its grip on democracy: 'We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media to look for this material, and then follow up with arrests.' Tim Walz (He is the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president in the 2024 U.S. presidential election): “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy.”

Your thoughts, writings, and communications (with or without machine intelligence) can only be private if they are never held by any central party. It is time you learn and discover Nostr. Study, use Nostr, start now. Freedom of speech is one of the most precious things in life and society. We lose it at our peril.

**On the 6th of August:

➡ Morgan Stanley's 15,000 wealth advisors, and $4.8 trillion under management, started pitching clients to buy Bitcoin ETFs by BlackRock and Fidelity on the 7th of August. Several sources believe that Wells Fargo will quickly follow Morgan Stanley with Bitcoin ETF approvals.

The Bitcoin ecosystem will gain 15,000+ professional salespeople who have relationships with a trillion dollars of managed wealth. Ignore the noise and focus on the signal.

➡'Tether’s Q2 2024 attestation reveals they hold $4.7 billion in Bitcoin. They also announced a new all-time high in direct and indirect U.S. Treasury holdings at $97.6 billion, surpassing Germany, the UAE, and Australia.' - Bitcoin News

➡$5.2B worth of Bitcoin was moved by short-term holders within a week. In contrast, long-term holders largely held onto their BTC. Of the $850M in realized losses, only $600K originated from long-term holders. Don't sell your precious corn to BlackRock.

Now, read the statement above again and think about it. Only 0.07% of the $850M losses were incurred by long-term holders. Jepp, we don't freaking sell our Bitcoin! Only (the new) paper hands got frightened and shook out.

➡'Bitcoin is in the "Extreme Fear" phase of the Fear & Greed Index at a score of 17/100. We've been this fearful 3 times in the last 5 years: • 2019 bottom • 2020 bottom • 2022 bottom Plenty of blood-curdling screams in the streets. Excellent buying opportunity.' -Joe Consorti

➡Lifehack: 'Airbnb host catches guests running a Bitcoin mining farm on his property. He was tipped off when the power company notified him that the renters used a month's worth of electricity in just 4 days.' -Bitcoin News

➡'It currently takes 1,880 hrs (47 weeks) of work to buy 1 Bitcoin. Said another way: 1 Bitcoin currently buys 1 FTE (at avg. US wage). Now this is before income tax. If you take that into account it would be closer to 1.5 years.' - Anilsaidso
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On the 7th of August:

➡'In Bitcoin over the last decade, the average return for the top 10 days each year was 184%, and the average return (loss) for all of the remaining days each year was −10%.' - James Lavish
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This is why you don't trade Bitcoin. Time in the market beats timing the market. Just buy with a 4+ year horizon and go live your life. Spend time with your family & friends.

➡Metaplanet is raising $70M to increase its Bitcoin holdings. The company plans to allocate $58.76M of the funds directly to Bitcoin, aiming to hedge against currency depreciation.

➡Michael Saylor says “I own at least 17,732 Bitcoin and can’t see a better place to put money”

On the 8th of August:

➡21,000 Bitcoins were taken off exchanges last week.

➡Metaplanet secures ¥1 billion 0.1% APR loan; proceeds to fund additional purchases of $BTC.

➡Bloomberg's Balchunas: '99.5% of the money invested in Bitcoin ETFs held firm despite a -14% drop on Monday and a -21% decline for the week.

IBIT saw no outflows at all — a total freak. I’m very bullish on ETF investors’ resilience, but even I’m surprised by this.'

On the 10th of August:

➡The number of Bitcoin nodes has increased 20% yoy.

On the 11th of August:

➡The Bitcoin White paper, but explained in Gen Z Language.
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Original source: https://bitcoinforgenz.org

➡'3 years ago, Bitcoin's market cap was ~$835B. Same for all the crypto stuff w/o stablecoins. Today, Bitcoin's market cap is up 37% ($1.15T) And the other stuff? -11% (not adjusted for inflation) It’s an insightful statistic to present to people who blindly “diversify”.' -Sam Wouters

Bitcoin, not CrYpTO (aka. altcoins).

On the 12th of August:
➡Remember my statement on Trump after the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville? (Stop larping, politicians need votes, etc., etc.)

President Trump has announced his 20 Core Promises to the American people. We (Bitcoin) are not even a top 20 priority issue in Trump's agenda.

You know what is on #13: Keep the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency. "end inflation" and "keep the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency" are diametrically opposed and are diabolical. If you don't believe me, scroll down a bit and read the segment Macro-Economics.

For all the people on Twitter or other platforms, stop bootlicking, stop larping. You can’t say “Don’t trust verify” AND trust politicians or go full fangirl.

➡Bitcoinminer Marathon to raise $250m to buy more Bitcoin.

'Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. Announces Proposed Private Offering of $250 Million of Convertible Senior Notes. Proceeds to be used primarily to acquire Bitcoin and for general corporate purposes.'

They bought $100m in July and currently HODL 20,000 Bitcoin.

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:
On the 6th of August:

👉🏽'JP Morgan says Institutions bought the dip while Retail panic-sold aggressively. Retail sold -$1 BILLION -2.5 standard deviations BELOW the 12m average Institutions bought +$14 billion. +2.9 std dev ABOVE the 12m average' - Rader

Maybe it's because trading platforms were down for retail investors? Market manipulation at its finest.

On the 8th of August:

👉🏽Investors Pull $2.2 Billion From ARKK In 2024 As Cathie Wood Underperforms Nasdaq By -30% YTD

👉🏽$6.4 TRILLION wiped out from global stock markets in just 4 weeks - Bloomberg

🏦Banks:
👉🏽No news

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:
Going to start this segment with a great quote by Luke Gromen:

'JPY "too strong" = global market dysfunction, which quickly leads to UST dysfunction. USD "too strong" = UST market dysfunction, which quickly leads to global market dysfunction.

Powell ultimately only has a choice of how he wants to lose the long end - "fire" or "ice"?'
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This is what triggered a global-scale sell-off of every major asset class.

This is how unstable the system is. To add a great James Lavish quote:

'And one might say the root cause before the trigger, and the reason for instability was this (15 years of free money).'

On the 6th of August:

👉🏽M2 money supply update: On the 7th of August the US Treasury starts Treasury buy-backs again at $30 billion a month. The US Treasury will begin buying back up to $50 billion worth of outstanding government securities by the end of October, primarily to provide liquidity support.

$8.5B buyback in August
$31.5B buyback in September
$10B buyback in October Hello liquidity, the printers are back on!
Remember:

USD in circulation (M2): 21T US Government Debt: 35.1T* More debt than their money in circulation.

The US Debt just hit 35.1 Trillion. Up 0.1 Trillion in a week.
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It is kicking the goddamnnn can down the road.

The U.S. Now Has:

Record $17.8 trillion in household debt
Record $12.5 trillion in mortgages
Record $1.6 trillion in auto loans
Near record $1.6 trillion in student loans
Record $1.14 trillion in credit card debt (with the average person owing $6,218 at a 20%+ rate. Making minimum payments, it will take them over 18 years and an additional $9K+ to pay off that debt.) Total household debt is now up 53% over the last 10 years and total credit card debt is up 50% since 2020. Meanwhile, delinquency rates on credit cards and auto loans are nearing the highs seen in 2008
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"Who could defeat the US military?"

Compounding interest is defeating the US military & compounding interest is undefeated v. hegemons. Buy LT USTs if you think the US will lose Cold War 2.0 for lack of printing enough USDs to finance this; if not, buy gold, BTC, & stocks.' - Luke Gromen

No doom and gloom, just facts.

Anyway: "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics" - General Omar Bradley

Omar Nelson Bradley was a senior officer of the United States Army during and after World War II, rising to the rank of General of the Army.

👉🏽Again a great explanation of the situation in Japan:

Bank of Japan (BoJ)

1. Prints insane amounts of money.
2. Becomes the largest holder of ETFs in the Nikkei, incentivizing investors to purchase Japanese ETFs borrowing in yen.
3. Yen falls to 40-year lows
4. BOJ blames "speculators". A classic.
5. BOJ spends billions stabilizing the yen
6. Yen rises, market declines, margin calls jump, Nikkei plummets. Black Monday. You think this is a "free market".
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Classic interventionist economics by the BoJ.

Explanation: 'Now what does this mean:

Treasury buybacks improve liquidity in the bond market that has been living on life support over the last few years as high inflation made bonds unappealing
This may be deflationary if the amount of money taken out is larger than the amount we are spending to aid in economic expansion I hope this helps you.
This will likely lead to a lowering of interest rates later on.
This will improve US credit ratings as it shows that we are paying down our debts, hopefully, faster than we are creating new debts. I hope this helps.' -Tim
👉🏽Bank of Japan to hold an emergency meeting to discuss International Financial Markets - Reuters

The Bank of Japan said it, the Ministry of Finance, and the Financial Services Agency will meet from 3 pm on the 6th of August in Tokyo to discuss international markets.

After the meeting: 'No more rate hikes in the near term due to market volatility.' BoJ

On the 7th of August:

👉🏽 Germany's industrial production was up in June. But looking at the chart and the previous month's revised down (3.1% decline), it's a bit too early to call for a revival of Europe's former Manufacturing 'Powerhouse.'

Germany has had no growth for five years. As a matter of fact, German industrial production has been constantly declining since 2017. Grotesque overregulation and energy suicide are accelerating deindustrialization, and some left weirdos are even celebrating degrowth nonsense.

Meanwhile the number of bankruptcies in Germany "unexpectedly" rose in July to the highest level in about ten years.
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👉🏽'The US unemployment rate has risen for 4 consecutive months, the longest streak since the 2008 Financial Crisis.

Over the last 75 years, every time unemployment rose for 4 consecutive months, the US economy entered recession.

The jobless rate has surged from 3.8% in March to 4.3% in July, its highest level since October 2021.

Meanwhile, the US hires rate declined to 3.4% in July, its lowest level since the 2020 Pandemic and below the pre-pandemic average of 3.8%. The US labor market is contracting.' -TKL

👉🏽 11% of credit card balances in the US are now 90+ days delinquent, the highest in over a decade. Probably nothing!

👉🏽'We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media to look for this material, and then follow up with arrests.'

The director of public prosecutions of England and Wales warns that sharing online material of riots could be an offense.

This is not something I just made up. He is saying no free speech. the British government is completely corrupt, and anyone who points this out is a target as sharing videos is now a crime. Is it even a democracy then?

Tim Walz (He is the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president in the 2024 U.S. presidential election): “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy.”

Remember what Jacinda Ardern, then Prime Minister of New Zealand said in 2020: "We will continue to be your single source of truth…Remember, unless you hear it from us it is not the truth."

OpenAI has an ex-NSA director on its Board;

The new Dutch Prime Minister is a Former Dutch intelligence chief; How convenient!

Now don't get me wrong. People should think before they post or repost something on social media. But arresting people for creating online content or reposting that contact is just vile.

V for Vendetta was supposed to be just a graphic novel... not real life! A reminder that V for Vendetta is based in the UK!

Again, you should start using Nostr.

And it is not just in the UK, also EUROPE is going crazy. Read the bit on the 12th of August.

On the 8th of August:

👉🏽Bank of England expected to lose £254 BILLION from the QE money printing program since December 2021 - The Economist

On the 10th of August:

👉🏽'How much have prices increased over the last 24 years?

US hospital services prices have skyrocketed by 256% since the beginning of this century.

At the same time, College Tuition and Fees, as well as College Textbooks spiked by 188% and 158%, respectively.

Moreover, the prices of Childcare or Nursery School and Medical Care Services rose by 139% and 136%.

On the other hand, TVs, Toys, and computer software prices declined by 98%, 74%, and 74%, respectively.

To put this into perspective, average hourly wages are up 119% since 2000. Wage growth is struggling to keep up with many items.' -TKL
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Our society and our economy are driven by debt. CPI is a structural understanding of actual inflation. Everything the government subsidizes goes up by 1 to 300 percent. More protocols, less competition, less disruption, less efficiency; Ergo more inflation. (you can sum up the last part in one word: EUROPE)

The industries where governments stay out are private competition, ergo drives pricing down. Competition is deflationary, when will people realize that?

👉🏽'The rich are getting richer faster than ever before:

The top 40% of US income earners hold 83% of the total net worth, near an all-time record.

The top 20% account for 71% of the total net worth, up 10 percentage points over the last 2 decades.

On the other hand, the bottom 40% of income households hold only 8% of the wealth. Moreover, the bottom 20% of earners reflect just 3% of total US wealth. Over the last few years, the rich have gotten a lot richer.' - TKL

This makes perfect sense. If you can hold assets in an inflationary economy/environment, well assets and wealth will go up. The consequences of central banks all around the world printing trillions. The money inevitably flows into asset classes creating bubbles in equity markets, real estate, luxury goods, and many more. The wealthy being the largest owners of these assets simply benefit the most. What do we call that? It’s called the Cantillon effect.

On the 12th of August:

👉🏽Freedom of speech is one of the most precious things in life and society.
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'It's amazing how everything they say, is always the opposite: "ensuring freedom of expression and information are protected" = "censor anything we, an unelected group of ultrawealthy technocrats, disagree with". - ZeroHedge

I couldn't have said it better...Jeroen Blokland:

'Europe has completely lost it. European ‘politicians’, who are not leaders, increasingly act from an ideologist perspective, which is incompatible with democratic and socially supported policy making. To send a threatening letter to Elon Musk, compelling him to censor(!) his meeting with Trump is another example of how the aging, declining, and weakening European ‘power’ unrightfully believes it can force its subjective moral standard onto others. Not only does that create friction with many other parts of the world, which outperform Europe in many areas, it also causes massive polarization on the European continent.'

"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice." - Montesquieu

"The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the servants of tyranny a good conscience." - Albert Camus

Really you should study Bitcoin & Nostr!

'Paradoxically, the Cantillon Effect means that the very last people to understand the need for BTC & technologies like Nostr will be those in and closest to western technocratic & banking centers.' - Luke Gromen

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:

Great book, great podcast (What Bitcoin Did): Resistance Money with Andrew Bailey, Bradley Rettler, & Craig Warmke 'Andrew Bailey, is a Professor of Philosophy at Yale-NUS College, Bradley Rettler is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wyoming and Craig Warmke is a Professor of Philosophy at Northern Illinois University. In this episode we discuss their book Resistance Money and the global net-benefits of Bitcoin.'

“When asking a question like this…it’s tempting to replace it with the question ‘is Bitcoin good for me?’, and then you’re off to bag-pumping or bag-dumping; so what we tried to do here is to give a bit more precision to the question: ‘is Bitcoin good for the world?’” — Andrew Bailey

https://youtu.be/OtEp9lZKWvA?si=sOQC7fIB0UEtVhze

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin

The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. (Please only use it till the 31st of October - after that full KYC)

Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. 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.

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.

Many thanks for reading the Weekly Recap, see you all next week!

Felipe - Bitcoin Friday
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Here's my profile for Reason on Nostr and why it could very well change the world

Pasting a few paragraphs here, you can find the rest at the link

Feel free to spread far and wide 😉

*************

Can Nostr Make Twitter's Dreams Come True?

Twitter's founder says Nostr is “100 percent what we wanted”—an open, ownerless network

Alex Gladstein | 8.13.2024

Virtually everyone agrees that social media is broken. On Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok, people fear out-of-control algorithms, fake news, state actor censorship, and propaganda. Google and Meta collect vast troves of personal information on their users and receive hundreds of thousands of requests every year from governments around the world to access that data. YouTube has become arguably "the most powerful media platform in the history of humanity," yet its algorithm is an ever-changing black box to the creators that populate the platform with videos. During the pandemic, federal officials were in contact with every major social media platform, coercing them to remove content.

The problem is centralized control. We can't trust companies to run our primary communications infrastructure. Government regulation only makes matters worse because it creates new legal barriers to entering the industry, which protects incumbent players and stifles innovation.

What if there were an alternative, not owned by Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or the Chinese Communist Party? What if there were a way to control your own data to prevent companies from harvesting and monetizing it? What if you had granular control over what you see in your feed, with the freedom to choose your own algorithms? What if you owned your identity, which could be accessed seamlessly across different clients? That way, if you disapprove of the changes that Elon Musk brought to X, instead of closing your account you could take your handle and followers elsewhere.

That alternative exists. It's called "Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays"—or Nostr.

The Decentralized Solution

Invented by a pseudonymous programmer and overwhelmingly funded by grants from non-profit foundations, this decentralized, free, and open-source protocol has been quietly evolving for the past three years. Like bitcoin, Nostr is a community-run digital network highly resistant to censorship and corruption. It has 40,000 weekly active users and a growing ecosystem of clients and applications ranging from social media to long-form publishing to payments.

Nostr is only necessary because our existing internet is so broken.

Fifteen years ago, social media seemed destined to decentralize the world and give power back to the people. In 2009, we watched as Arab Spring activists used Twitter and Facebook to organize, coordinate, and help topple several long-standing dictatorships. The promise was that these new social platforms, designed by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, could help liberate the masses.

It was intoxicating—but turned out to be a mirage. The Arab revolutions stalled out when brutal military regimes cracked down. These platforms became tools for spying and censoring their users. X and Facebook have helped journalists and human rights activists reach bigger audiences, but they haven't fulfilled their revolutionary promise.

Jack Dorsey's Shift from Bluesky to Nostr

This was a major theme at the 2024 Oslo Freedom Forum, which is put on annually by the Human Rights Foundation, where I serve as chief strategy officer. At this conference for democracy and human rights, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey told the audience that the problem was, actually, guys like him: The very fact that Twitter, now X, has a CEO makes it a single point of failure. Governments routinely pressured Dorsey to censor content; once the company's offices in India were raided. Dorsey says that under the new Musk regime X complies with whatever governments want.

The X network is proprietary. Known as a "silo," this construct traps a user's identity, followers, and data. X also has the power to evict anyone from the platform and delete what they've written. Several years ago, when he was still running the company, Dorsey became convinced that Twitter should become an application instead, where users could post content to an open, ownerless network. This would make it similar to how bitcoin works, where you use an application called a wallet to interact with the network, but the network itself is neutral and open.

Building a non-proprietary architecture was Dorsey's original vision for Twitter, but over time the need to maximize revenue to build a business and serve shareholders undermined that goal.

Nevertheless, in 2021, Dorsey encouraged the creation of Bluesky—an initiative bootstrapped in-house to create that open neutral base layer. But after Musk bought the company, the managers of Bluesky were afraid they would run out of money and started raising funds from venture capitalists, which undermined the vision of building an open platform. Dorsey grew disenchanted and left the Bluesky board.

At the conference in Oslo, Dorsey explained what happened next:

I asked a question: What open source initiatives should I be funding that would be helpful to the public internet? And people kept tweeting at me that I should be looking at Nostr. I found the GitHub that described it and it was 100 percent what we wanted from Bluesky, but it wasn't developed from a company. It was completely independent. Its paper diagnosed every single problem we saw and had. But did it in a grassroots and dead simple way, that felt like the early Twitter where any developer could get on and really feel it.

Escaping the 'Golden Prisons'

Nostr was created in 2020 by the pseudonymous Brazilian programmer fiatjaf, who describes it as "the simplest open protocol that is able to create a censorship-resistant global 'social' network once and for all."

Though nobody is in charge, Nostr works as promised and is thriving. "It is the solution we've all been looking for," says Miljan Braticevic, founder of Primal, one of the two dozen plus clients now available for the Nostr protocol. "Nostr is not a Twitter competitor or a Mastodon competitor. This is the biggest misconception at the moment. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Nostr is nothing less than the foundation for the new internet. Meaning almost every conceivable app we have today will be built on Nostr."

Braticevic's prediction is echoed by at least a dozen other prominent developers. Martti Malmi, the first coder to work on bitcoin alongside Satoshi Nakamoto, is now a Nostr developer. In a recent talk, he said he had started to work on similar ideas around decentralized identity in 2019, only to come close to giving up. But then he found fiatjaf's invention, which he called a "godsend."

"Bitcoin is freedom of money, and Nostr is freedom of everything else," Malmi said. "I was there" in the earliest days of bitcoin, "and Nostr is even more intense."

For something that could be world-changing, Nostr is quite simple. To join, you sign up with a mobile or desktop client, which helps you to create a public and private key pair. The public key (or "npub") is used as your identifier, and you share it with clients and other users so that people can find your posts or pay you for your content. The private key ("nsec") is hidden by the user, stored safely (just like a bitcoin seed phrase), and is your way to log in to different services. Unlike platforms like X or Facebook, no other information is required to set up and use Nostr.

This gives users a powerful range of sovereignty. You can use a client, for example, that has strong hate speech controls. Or you can choose one that doesn't have any at all. You can use a client with aggressive algorithms, just like the ones X uses today. Or you can use one without any algorithm at all. Today, when you log in to an app like Primal, you can sort your feed by what's the latest, by what's most popular, by what's most zapped, or by customized keywords. It's up to you.

Last month, the macroeconomist Lyn Alden, author of one of the best books on bitcoin, published a long essay about Nostr's potential:

[Nostr] is a simple set of foundational building blocks that, if widely adopted, could gradually reshape "the Web" as we know it. Instead of a separate set of siloed social ecosystems, we could gravitate toward a more interoperable set of ecosystems, with more of the power dispersed to the content creators and to the audience, and away from the middlemen corporations.

The Nostr network is constructed like a spider web that can morph and regenerate, making it almost impossible to censor. When you set up a client on Nostr (perhaps, Primal or Damus on iOS; Amethyst on Android; or Coracle on the web), you choose from a variety of relays to connect to. This architecture ensures no single point of failure: If you are connected to seven or eight relays, and half of them choose to censor posts, your feed remains censorship-free, as your app will display the net sum of everything broadcast from each relay. If the Chinese government decides to attack your relays—as it did in 2023 when Damus launched on the Hong Kong and mainland app store—then more can be spun up. "The enemy," said Damus creator Will Casarin, "is too numerous."

Prominent bitcoin developer and educator Gigi—who switched to Nostr and deleted his X account—says that what helped it become so resilient is that it has zero exit cost. If the Chinese Communist Party bans YouTube, its domestic users lose everything. There's no way to get back their profiles and followers. The same is true if a user voluntarily closes an account.

Gigi calls these corporate silos "golden prisons" with no escape. Nostr's spider-like architecture makes escaping easy. If one client goes down, or you fail to connect to one relay, you just find another client or connect to another relay. You keep your posts, photos, preferences, contacts, and even algorithms of choice. If you use X, you are an X creator. But if you use Primal, you aren't a Primal creator, you are a Nostr creator.

https://reason.com/2024/08/13/can-nostr-make-twitters-dreams-come-true/


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Human-readable URL for sharing outside of Nostr:

https://habla.news/a/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzq2jazfrlt2gdkxx2lwc7qn47j3ewlv34dhpj6qqx38w4agpe3tgpqqxnzdejxvcrxdphxy6njvfnajzrw3
https://m.primal.net/Jbtr.jpg


https://njump.me/naddr1qqxnzdejxgenzdfh8qerzdesqgsz5hgjgl66jrd33jhmk8sya055wthmydtdcvksqp5fm402qwv26qgrqsqqqa28ntsfq2
https://m.primal.net/Jbtr.jpg


https://highlighter.com/npub19fw3y3l44yxmrr90hv0qf6lfguh0kg6kmsedqqrgnh275quc45qs70rgaq/note1ky4y5pkaln9827lqxz3mavwyzsy2y3lj3xjwrmklatgus2689k2q5244zf

New one 🧡


Regarding the "right" to self-custody: ask yourself, do you need a politician's permission to hold 12 words in your head?
https://dergigi.com/2022/04/03/inalienable-property-rights/


*second time


Reading ‘The Sovereign Individual’ for the second just hits differently.

I wish I had read this book 20 years ago, but I wasn't aware of its existence.

If you're looking to take your brain to the next level, figure out why we pay taxes, and understand the concepts of inflation and why our nation-state does what it does, well read the book.

A vision from 1997 that's gradually becoming a reality.

Study, learn, hodl, decouple.
#bitcoin                    🧡
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

My savings account: Bitcoin
The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. (Please only use it till the 31st of October - after that full KYC) Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap                      🧡   #nostr                        #BTC                       #Bitcoin                      #plebchain                         #grownostr    #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption
https://m.primal.net/JgKO.jpg


Calm before the Storm. #Bitcoin
https://m.primal.net/JeDu.png


Damn! The majority are custodial wallets :/
https://nostrcheck.me/media/1577e4599dd10c863498fe3c20bd82aafaf829a595ce83c5cf8ac3463531b09b/a1fa7a42d6aabb24f4d9edd90a6eebe6474361bbb48092df94a888f0e58a391a.webp


https://habla.news/a/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzq2jazfrlt2gdkxx2lwc7qn47j3ewlv34dhpj6qqx38w4agpe3tgpqqxnzdejxymnvwf5xq6rxv3smtshxn

https://m.primal.net/Jbtr.jpg


nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzq2jazfrlt2gdkxx2lwc7qn47j3ewlv34dhpj6qqx38w4agpe3tgpqqxnzdejxymnvwf5xq6rxv3smtshxn

https://m.primal.net/Jbtr.jpg


Hmm that’s strange. On Primal, habla and on highlighter.com I have no problem.


Mate just tried Habla and just shared the latest Weekly Recap in long format. Any feedback? Happy to hear! Thx for the info 🧡💪🏽


nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzqcjemjkrcv7pexr3v47aqstelunwu5rtvkgdnw2sz0lcs7cqvgsaqqxnzdejxycn2d3exgmrqdpehaw2hk

Latest weekly recap 🧡


Thx mate!


Thx for the feedback! What do you mean by a long format? Do you have an example?


True about that. I will share that information in my next Weekly Recap. I think PocketBitcoin will follow suit, eventually.

Peach Bitcoin or Robosats for now (beginners/intermediate users) - or Bisq.


Just use Nostr🧡💜

Study, learn, hodl, decouple.
#bitcoin                    🧡
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

My savings account: Bitcoin
The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap                      🧡   #nostr                        #BTC                       #Bitcoin                      #plebchain                         #grownostr    #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption
https://m.primal.net/JOwt.jpg


Painting of Vincent Van Gogh becoming alive. "Cafe terrace at Night".
#painting #vangogh
https://video.nostr.build/24f08811e652e97426a6e3417bd090c4cd7a6ae8efc352f1dae4a1c066316d6b.mp4


Better late than never… the latest Weekly Recap🧡

🧠Quote(s) of the week:
'The main reason people don’t buy Bitcoin is because they don’t understand that money printing causes inflation, that inflation is time theft, and that time theft is slow murder.
The main reason people are not buying Bitcoin is because they think they’re late:
- You can’t be late to a perfect battery
- It does not have a CEO or foundation
- We’re at less than 1% global adoption
- It’s the only asset that is decentralized' - Bitcoin for Freedom

🧡Bitcoin news🧡
Oranje🇳🇱 into the semi finals and Nostr is vibin'.

1st of July:
➡'Bitcoin ATMs surge from 10K in Oct 2020 to over 38K globally, with continued growth expected.' -Bitcoin News

➡More than 65% of all Bitcoin in circulation has been held for more than 1 year.

2nd of July:
The German government! Their Industrial Production YoY plunges to -6.7% (est. -4.3%) and every nuclear power plant is shut down. So what is the stupidest thing to do? Sell your Bitcoin!
German Government sends another 282 Bitcoin worth $18 million to exchanges.
German parliament member Joana Cotar says the government selling Bitcoin is “not sensible.”
Urges “holding BTC as a strategic reserve currency.”

3rd of July:
➡ Trump sparks talks of Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.
FORBES: “That game theory would only accelerate if the United States… were the first developed country to begin accumulating bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset. This decision would fast-track the global acceptance of Bitcoin as a long-term savings instrument and a form of digital gold. In this scenario, the United States would enjoy the greatest windfall in profit among OECD countries as a result of holding first-mover advantage.”
Every nation will recognize Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.
Some will be first...like El Salvador.

➡The largest US Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms increased their hash rate by 50% in just one month. Currently, the world's largest Bitcoin mining facility is being built in Texas by Riot Platforms.
200 MW of the 1 GW total capacity is already operational.

5th of July:
➡MT GOX has started Bitcoin repayments to creditors.
'MtGox distributions are considered a price risk for Bitcoin and indeed they are. But it's a one-time risk and if prices must drop to absorb supply (certainly possible) that supply will be transferred to much stronger hands. Once completed, supply risk is virtually eliminated.'

➡'Celsius is going after over 5000 people who withdrew their money from Celsius within 90 days of their bankruptcy.
Imagine withdrawing your funds from a crypto exchange that has been lying about their reserves and they declare bankruptcy days after you escaped.
And now you’re being sued.
All the more reason to withdraw sooner rather than later.' -Bitfinexed

Just don't have your corn on centralized exchanges or services like Celcius. Once again:
NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR COINS!🔑

➡El Salvador keeps buying one Bitcoin a day, undeterred. By purchasing Bitcoin I am confident that El Salvador will become one of the fastest developing countries thanks to deflation of their currency and having Bitcoin as their new national currency.

➡'Bitcoin's all-time longest winning streak has just ended. 427 days without a 25% drawdown. Beat the 2012 record by 63 days. Pretty incredible run we've had and well overdue for a correction.' - Charles Edwards

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:
👉🏽 No news

🏦Banks:
👉🏽

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

On the 1st of July:
👉The yen's 12-year crash against the dollar continues. The Japanese currency buys half the amount of dollars it did in 2012. This is what currency collapse looks like.

On the 2nd of July:
(Picture 1)
👉WW1 and WW2 were discrete events with a defined goal. The main question is, what the actual fuck are they spending on?
And it is not only in the US, put the deficits and debt bubble on a country like Germany or Europe in general and you would have a bigger problem. Wonder why the world has a problem? Government deficits relative to GDP are out of control.

Regarding the spending problem:
'Annual US government spending reached a MASSIVE $6.5 trillion in May, just $1.1 trillion below the March 2021 record.
The government's total outlays have DOUBLED in just a decade.
To put this into perspective, this is more than the size of most world economies except the US and China.
Meanwhile, the US budget deficit hit $1.7 trillion, or 6.2% of GDP over the last 12 months.
In the past, such levels of spending have only occurred during major crises.' -TKL

Meanwhile, Chair Powell says the U.S. deficit is better fixed sooner rather than later.
'The U.S. government deficit is unsustainable, Chair Powell said in Europe, while avoiding comment on fiscal policy, as usual. The subject arose as markets brace for the possibility of the same party controlling the Executive branch and both houses of Congress after the November election, a combination that investors typically see as an open door to higher spending. "The U.S. is running a very large deficit at a time when we are at full employment," Powell said. "This is something that should be a top-level issue" for elected officials. "In the longer run we will have to do something sooner or later and sooner would be better than later," he said.'

Meanwhile, US debt increases by $109B in 1 day. Just to give you one more stat:
It took 165 years for the US to accumulate its first $1 trillion of debt. Now, the US amasses $1 trillion in debt every 150 days.

👉'US manufacturing activity fell to 48.5 points in June, the third consecutive month of contraction.
The latest reading of the ISM manufacturing PMI index missed expectations of 49.1 points.
The decline has been primarily driven by contracting employment, production, and new orders.
Overall, US manufacturing has shrunk in 19 of the last 20 months, the longest streak since the 2008 Financial Crisis.
Is the economy slowing down?'- TKL

👉Eurozone core inflation unexpectedly sticky: Headline CPI slows to +2.5% in June from 2.6% in May, in line with forecasts. However, core inflation is at 2.9% – a notch higher than forecasted. Experts had expected it to cool to 2.8%.

👉Last week I already mentioned that Javier Milei slashed Argentina's annual inflation by 95% in just seven months. Monthly inflation has fallen from 25.5% to 4.2% since he took office.
From a 1355% inflation rate to a surplus budget, his economic policies have transformed the economy.

This week Argentina's President Milei says the nation will no longer print money: We are going to the zero issuance stage....what we aim for is that the broad monetary base does not vary."
Inflation in Argentina was 64% in the first 4 months of 2024.
Who could have guessed that cutting government spending and not printing was going to reduce inflation...Who could have guessed...
Now don't get me wrong it is a great move by Milei but it's still only as good as the honesty of governments (always lying and always finding a reason to print more). That's why only money that CANNOT be debased matters. Bitcoin!

👉'With Biden 2.0 no longer an option, the Treasury has also stopped pretending and the US government jumped by $109 billion in one day - the biggest one-day increase since Oct '23 - to a record $34.831 trillion. And now the debt starts to really move again.' - Zerohedge

Funny stat:
'Since Jan 1, 2000:
2 Money Supply (USD) has increased by an average of:
- $81M PER HOUR
- $1.9B/day
- $700B/year
$17T increase in 24yrs (8,948 days)
THERE IS NO LIMIT TO HOW MUCH FIAT MONEY CENTRAL BANKS WILL CREATE.'  -DenverBitcoin

On the 3rd of July:
👉'Italy's real wage misery: inflation-adjusted wages in 2023 were 4.4% lower than in 1990. Even real wages in Greece performed a little better.' -Phillip Heimberger
I wonder if this is a contributing factor to Meloni's win.

Before joining the Eurozone Greece, Italy & Co. were staying competitive by continually devaluing their currencies. Now the only avenues left are reduction of real wages or productivity growth.

👉'Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) jumps to 5.4%, the highest level in history
*The SOFR is the benchmark interest rate that measures the cost of borrowing cash overnight.' -CarlBMenger

On the 5th of July:
👉'BOTH May and April jobs report numbers were just revised lower by a combined 111,000 jobs.
The May jobs report was revised from 272,000 to 218,000 while the April jobs report was revised from 165,000 to 108,000.
This means that 10 out of the last 15 monthly jobs reports have been revised lower.
On a net basis, the US economy really only added 95,000 jobs this month.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is now at 4.1% since December 2021.
The labor market is slowing down rapidly. The US economy really only added a net 95,000 jobs in June...
...until that number is revised lower next month after all the headlines say the labor market is thriving.
The labor market is declining.' - TKL

Jobs look OK if the government just hires everyone.
41% of jobs added since 2019 were by the government burning taxpayer dollars.

On the 6th of July:
👉'That‘s the most scary chart I have seen in a while. Unfunded pension entitlements in major European countries are between 300% and 500% of GDP. Mixed with collapsing demographics it’s a recipe for debt disaster.' - Michael A. Arouet
(Picture 2)

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:
Is the Bitcoin Cycle Broken? With @therationalroot
They discuss:
- BitcoinSpiral Chart 3D & cycle alignment
- ETF flows & supply dynamics
- Liquid supply & the HODL model
- Power law, S2F, & the price multiplier effect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kcq5mevS6M

Credit: I have used multiple sources!
My savings account: Bitcoin
The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. 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.

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.
#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr
  #plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption
https://m.primal.net/JLzj.jpg
https://m.primal.net/JLzk.jpg


Ferguson’s Law states that any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defense will not stay great for very long. True of Hapsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire. -Nial Ferguson
https://m.primal.net/JKMh.jpg


Happy Sunday!

Plebs, whisky & meat!🧡

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap                       🧡   #nostr                         #BTC                        #Bitcoin                       #plebchain                          #grownostr    #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption
https://m.primal.net/JKIF.jpg
https://m.primal.net/JKII.jpg


Picture 1, 2, 3, and 4. https://image.nostr.build/516625becc4a5dd12bc6b39d712d121b7fd4f46a930b64f1a82b51c5d35a4cd2.jpg https://image.nostr.build/f8dd1e5420ec3d9b4388ed588ef2affa82a34cd9538f747661234ae2c0c95005.jpg https://image.nostr.build/17c5c441d9f29874e571f0127ccbe2d0fd55fb1ca8fee79aa29e17836b3d0bbc.jpg https://image.nostr.build/b51fc9dcbf11bf1c69dfb16cfb29ee0110d2ce0e414d9c4b42f0d70cd21fac8c.jpg


🧠Quote(s) of the week:

'Last month, we've absorbed:
US Gov selling
German selling
Mt Gox distribution fears
Miner capitulation

Yet, Bitcoin is consolidating at $61K, just 20% below ATH.
Tops are the exact opposite, driven by FOMO and greed. This is nothing like that. We're going much higher.' - Thomas Fahrer

🧡Bitcoin news🧡
Oranje into the Quarter-Finals and Nostr is vibin'.

I want to start the Weekly Recap with a short story. I put the following post on Instagram and Nostr: https://njump.me/nevent1qqs0uzqg3nnuvsz0tycu4ydl2m4gnm245m0n3gsppxm4pttrgy8j3gqprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wdmksetjv5hxxmmdqy28wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hsygpu0hpvtplweczsl0r9szd3vzw3jgrlsfwawe65hxg9a89gq4jz4q5vzdpe

On IG (945 followers): 3 likes
On Nostr (273 followers): It has 68 likes, 14 reposts, 8 replies, and 12 zaps (people sent me small amounts of BTC)
On Nostr:
-No KYC or info required
-Instant final settlement (just press the Lightning button and boom it’s done)
-Bitcoin native
-Use any client (Damus and Primal on iOS, Amethyst on Android, or Primal on the web)
But far more important you own your own content + money!
Nostr is looking better every day.
Less doom, more hope. More you in control.

Great quote by  nostr:npub1trr5r2nrpsk6xkjk5a7p6pfcryyt6yzsflwjmz6r7uj7lfkjxxtq78hdpu :
'We wouldn’t need Nostr
-If we could trust social media companies
-If we could trust admins
-If we could trust could regulators
But we can’t. That’s why we need Plan N'
Bitcoin is an uncensorable transfer of value. Nostr is an uncensorable transfer of information.

24th of June:
➡Louisiana passes the bill to protect the right to custody of Bitcoin and ban CBDCs.
Louisiana joins Oklahoma, Montana, & Arkansas in setting a pro-Bitcoin policy blueprint for the nation.

25th of June:
➡'The German government sold 900 Bitcoin ($54M) on June 25th.
This included 200 BTC each to Coinbase and Kraken, with the remaining going to an unknown wallet ("139Po").' - Bitcoin News

Weak hands! These 900 Bitcoins are now (hopefully) safely in the hands of ultra-hardcore maxis with diamond hands.

➡'The current Bitcoin halving cycle is still outperforming the second halving cycle if you zoom in a lot on the bottom left of the chart. We are so early, very bullish!' - Pierre Rochard
(Picture 1)

➡Bitcoin lightning payments app Strike launches to millions across the UK.
Watch the full video (announcement) by Jack Mallers here: https://x.com/jackmallers/status/1806423520370364640

➡'Hedge Fund strategy:
Push down the Bitcoin price by shorting it until more and more miners need to sell because of the low price. The price goes even lower. Meanwhile, Hedge Funds buy up everything available then close their shorts and we go to $1M.'
Now you might say this is not realistic, but is it?
'When Blackrock has 500,000 Bitcoin and they've pushed the price to $1M.
Blackrock will make $1.25B in Fees. Not mining fees, the IBIT management fees.
Every. Year. Forever.' - Thomas Fahrer

➡Bitcoin balance on exchanges continues to steadily decline.
Since the beginning of the year, about 250,000 Bitcoins have left the exchanges. Less Bitcoin on exchanges means more short-term volatility.

➡ Morgan Stanley is set to approve Bitcoin ETFs on their wealth management platform for all clients by the end of August (at the latest), according to a senior source.

➡Latin American digital bank Nubank is integrating the Bitcoin Lightning Network for its 100 million customers. Nubark is owned by Warren Buffett.

➡Last week I mentioned that the German government sold roughly $425 million BTC. One of the best quotes on this topic by Alex Gladstein:
'Germany selling large amounts of Bitcoin for euros *that it can print* will go right up there with ditching nuclear power in exchange for relying on Putin for fuel as biggest self-inflicted wounds of the 21st century'

26th of June:
Bitcoin hashrate is down nearly 10% off the all-time highs that were hit at the end of April

27th of June:
➡'BlackRock disclosed buying Bitcoin for its Global Allocation Fund in the latest SEC filing.
This is the THIRD internal BlackRock fund that has bought Bitcoin through the IBIT Bitcoin ETF' - Bitcoin Archive

'Looking at the past 5 years, Bitcoin is up 422%, mid-cap altcoins 145% and small-cap altcoins 8%. You missed 400% chasing shiny things instead of embracing Bitcoin. Choose wisely on how you store your value, allocate your time, and invest your resources.' - Gabor Gurbacs
(Picture 2)
As usual and in every cycle most people think they're a genius with impeccable timing until the rugs, dumps, scams, and 'capital rotations' hit, and then they're left holding dust.

➡Cleanspark will acquire bitcoin miner GRIID for $155 million, with plans to expand over 400 MW in Tennessee.
Under the merger agreement, CleanSpark will purchase all GRIID common stock in an all-stock transaction, with GRIID stockholders receiving CleanSpark shares. The South is now Bitcoin miner territory, as it started in Georgia, then Mississippi, and now Tennessee. If I am right the South holds more available energy than any other region in America.

➡Bolivia makes Bitcoin trading and payments legal again in an effort to modernize the financial system.
Ecuador is now the only country in Latin America that prohibits Bitcoin payments.

28th of June:
➡ In the previous Weekly Recap I mentioned that Michael Dell, CEO of multi-billion dollar tech firm Dell Technologies, just dipped his toes into the Bitcoin waters, and this recent jest did make a splash.
Now last week Michael Dell posted a tweet with a poll 'The most important thing':
👉🏽AI
👉🏽Bitcoin
👉🏽Love and relationships
👉🏽None of the above.

'Is Dell coming for the throne? Is 23 times more fiat enough to overtake Saylor in Bitcoin holdings? Maybe not, but will be a fun match to watch.' - Bitcoin for Freedom

➡Bitcoin holdings at OTC desks have seen a significant increase in the last two months.

29th of June:
➡Bitcoin miner capitulation has reached levels comparable to December 2022 (7.6%), which marked the cycle bottom after the FTX collapse.

➡In June, U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETF Monthly Net Inflow: $+668 million
- Price down to $61,000 from $67,500
- Blackrock adds 15,416 Bitcoin, a $1.1 billion inflow, and owns 306,979 Bitcoin
- 2nd Fidelity with $276 million inflow
- 3rd Bitwise Invest with $56 million inflow
Ergo: Added almost $700 million and price down 10%.
Also, Saylor bought $800 million more.

➡'About 99.5% of all the Bitcoin in circulation is held in 16.5 million UTXOs that have a value of 1m sats or more. Most of the other 169 million UTXOs will likely become economically unspendable in the future assuming they aren't consolidated into larger ones relatively soon.'  - Wicked
If you want to learn more on the topic please read the following article:
https://river.com/learn/bitcoins-utxo-model/#what-is-bitcoin-utxo-management

1st of July:
➡SONY to launch Bitcoin and CrApTo exchange. According to a statement on July 1, Sony will take ownership of Amber Japan’s WhaleFin exchange, which will be renamed S.BLOX Co.

➡Japanese company Metaplanet has acquired an additional ~20.195 BTC for ¥200 million
As of July 1st, Metaplanet now holds ~161.26 BTC, equivalent to ~9% of its market cap.

➡'Bitcoin difficulty is expected to drop -6% on Friday, the biggest drop since Dec'22 (the FTX collapse), which marked the cycle bottom. Even the May 10 drop at -5.6% has so far marked the bottom. Again, I wouldn't be surprised if this marked another local bottom. Relief is coming for miners.' - James van Straten

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:
👉🏽 No news

🏦Banks:
👉🏽 U.S. bank's unrealized losses have accumulated to $525 billion, almost 7 times bigger than during the GFC. (Picture 3)

Banks are the most highly regulated scams of our lifetime. Look at the picture and ask yourself, is this fine? FDIC report shows that the investment securities of US banks 'under water' big time, almost 7x worse than in the subprime crisis (GFC). this does not include losses on their regular loan portfolios.
One day the chicken will come home to roost.
Oh well, a little brrr can fix this...right?

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:
On the 24th of June:
👉Argentina has recorded zero Inflation in its food and beverage sector for the first time in 30 years. It's a great stat, but still not great. They need 120 quarters of negative inflation to make up for the damage. Javier Milei slashed Argentina's annual inflation by 95% in just seven months.
Monthly inflation has fallen from 25.5% to 4.2% since he took office.
From a 1355% inflation rate to a surplus budget, his economic policies have transformed the economy.

As Milei said, the reforms he is making will have lasting benefits in years to come. The population will settle into stability as time goes on. At the moment 60% of Argentina’s population wants Milei to continue with these profound reforms.
Who could have guessed that cutting government spending and not printing was going to reduce inflation...Who could have guessed...

👉The best news I have heard for a long time: JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE
He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted Airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.
1 out, 2 to go

Julian Assange’s jet and recovery costs totaled $520,000 and most of it was paid in Bitcoin
Someone from the community donated 8BTC in a single anonymous donation.

👉'The Japanese Yen against the US dollar just hit a fresh 34-year low.
The USD-JPY currency pair closed on Friday slightly below 160, the level which was previously defended by Japan’s Ministry of Finance intervention.
According to government data, Japan spent a record 9.8 trillion Yen ($62 billion) to support the currency between April 26th and May 29th.
This is all despite the Bank of Japan raising rates for the 1st time in 17 years in March from -0.1% to a range of 0%-0.1%.
Overall, the Japanese currency has lost 13% of its purchasing power against the US Dollar year-to-date.' -TKL

Over the last 12.5 years, the Japanese Yen has lost a whopping 53% of its value against the US Dollar! Yikes! To make it even worse Japan's Q1 GDP was revised down to -2.9%
Fire up the printers, banzai!
(Picture 4)

'Dear Bank of Japan congratulations, your toilet paper of a currency is now the worst performing in the world, with the lira, peso, and real all stronger.' - Zerohedge

On the 25th of June:
👉'Real retail sales are on track for their 2nd consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines. US retail sales adjusting for inflation fell by 0.9% in May and are now 3.8% below their April 2021 peak.
To put this into perspective, during the 2008 Financial Crisis, this metric dropped by ~13% and by ~4% in the early 2000s recession.
The largest decline in history took place during the 2020 Pandemic with a 20% decline.
Meanwhile, consumer sentiment has decreased for a 3rd straight month to its lowest level since November 2023.' - TKL

On the 27th of June:
👉After a shallow dip, Eurozone M3 Money Supply is making new highs.
Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, has already fired up the money printer. It's only a matter of time before others follow suit.
ps.: on the 1st of July -> US M2 Money Supply turns up.

Oh please bear in mind meaning the ESG debt is ballooning in Europe as the ECB is trying to add sustainability to its mandate.

👉U.S. Treasury Liquidity is now at its worst point in AT LEAST the last 14 years, surpassing even the GFC.

On the 28th of June:
👉'US consumers have exhausted their savings:
$2.3 trillion of accumulated savings have been depleted by Americans since August 2021.
In other words, $67.6 billion of savings has been spent by US consumers PER MONTH.
As savings have declined, consumer credit card debt has spiked by $290 billion, or ~40% in 3 years.
In other words, to fight rising prices and elevated interest rates, US households have gone into debt at the fastest pace since the 2008 Financial Crisis.
Consumers are struggling.' -TKL

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:
I want to give you a great conversation/podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBqLz5hvSHA
Credit: I have used multiple sources!
My savings account: Bitcoin
The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. 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.

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.
#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr
  #plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption


Just my opinion:
For long term savings you wanna have larger UTXOs. So try to bundle the small amounts (UTXO's).
You can use lightning but I would use it whilst running your own node.


I doubt that since mining is such a competitive industry. I wouldn't count on it.


Try not to have too many below 1m sats.


‘About 99.5% of all the Bitcoin in circulation is held in 16.5 million UTXOs that have a value of 1m sats or more. Most of the other 169 million UTXOs will likely become economically unspendable in the future assuming they aren’t consolidated into larger ones relatively soon.’ - nostr:npub14uhkst639zvc2trx2nlsvk4yqkjp690zk89keytnzgmq2az0qmnq58ez89

People please do some UTXO management and whilst doing that buy some sats.

Bitcoin’s Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs) can be classified into different segments based on their age.

UTXO Management for Dummies:
If everyone pays you in quarters you’ll have to lug around a big heavy bag. It’ll also cost you more time to spend as you have to count quarters when paying. So ask for $20s or $100s as payment, or change your quarters into bills from time to time.

Now I can hear you say...wtf is a UTXO?

A UTXO stands for unspent transaction output. Don’t worry about those unnecessarily complicated words. Just use “UTXO” and understand the concept of what it is…

If you want to learn/study the topic: https://armantheparman.com/utxo/
Credit picture: nostr:npub14uhkst639zvc2trx2nlsvk4yqkjp690zk89keytnzgmq2az0qmnq58ez89

Study, learn, hodl, decouple.
#bitcoin                    🧡
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

My savings account: Bitcoin
The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap                      🧡   #nostr                        #BTC                       #Bitcoin                      #plebchain                         #grownostr    #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption
https://m.primal.net/JCyH.jpg


🧠Quote(s) of the week:

Ferguson’s Law states that any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defense will not stay great for very long. True of Hapsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire. -Niall Ferguson

🧡Bitcoin news🧡
I want to start the Weekly Recap with a picture & a story. Someone posted the following quote/picture: (Picture 1)

What can you learn from this? His fundamental mistake was not gaining the understanding that Bitcoin differs from, and is superior to all CrYpTO.

‘This guy probably would’ve had a cost basis below $10k had he just started regularly dollar cost averaging into Bitcoin instead of trading shitcoins. The shortcut IS saving in Bitcoin.’ — nostr:npub14uhkst639zvc2trx2nlsvk4yqkjp690zk89keytnzgmq2az0qmnq58ez89

That's because CrYpTo isn't Bitcoin. If he were saving in Bitcoin since 2017, he would be retired.
Let me explain that with data:
If he bought Bitcoin in 2017 at the pico top he’d be up 300% right now
if he bought Bitcoin in 2017 at the bottom he’d be up 8,500% right now

Yikes! Anyway let's continue:

17th of June:
➡SEC's chief of the crypto asset enforcement division David Hirsch has left the role.
The timing of these things is almost like a script. weird, huh? Probably he will be hired by a financial corporation to lobby their 'CrYpTo' division.

➡BlackRock CEO Larry Fink: "No matter how much we tax, cut, or reduce debt, it will not be enough. Building new infrastructure is critical." -Simply Bitcoin
When he mentions new infrastructure, what do you think he means? CBDCs? Or Bitcoin? Is that why they're buying Bitcoin?

➡'Daily active Bitcoin addresses fell from 700K to 613K in the past month.' - Bitcoin News

19th of June:
➡'Bitcoin illiquid supply has increased since May, suggesting investors are choosing to hodl rather than trade.' -Bitcoin News

➡'Cleanspark announces the acquisition of five new Bitcoin mining facilities in Georgia for $25.8M.
The deal will boost Cleanspark's operational hashrate to +20 EH/s by the end of June.' -Bitcoin News

➡'People think DCAing forever into the S&P 500 is much safer than Bitcoin.
I question that severely. ~7% of your portfolio is now Nvidia, another 30% are mega-cap US tech, and the remaining 63% are just zombie companies.' - Joe Burnett

➡'Bitcoin mining distribution worldwide.' -Blockware (Picture 2)

20th of June:
'Bitcoin miner reserves fell to 1.90M BTC, the lowest level in the last 14 years.' - Bitcoin News

➡International Business Times says Bitcoin mining can help achieve “net zero by 2050,"
This is a mainstream media channel, based in NY. It’s a well-researched article on Bitcoin mining, aware of contemporary research including:
👉🏽Cornell study showing bitcoin can create “a self-sustaining cycle for renewable energy expansion”
👉🏽Digital Assets Research Institute study showing Bitcoinwell-researched uses 54.5% sustainable sources
👉🏽Various studies show Bitcoin mining can turn [wasted] “Excess Energy Into Economic Value”
Source: https://www.ibtimes.com/southeast-asia-can-turn-excess-energy-economic-value-through-bitcoin-mining-expert-3734777

➡MicroStrategy just bought $786 MILLION Bitcoin at an average cost of $65,883.
They acquired 11,931 more Bitcoin and continued their unwavering strategy of accumulating BTC. With this latest purchase, the company's total holdings now stand at approximately 226,331 Bitcoin.

➡Winklevoss twins donated 30 Bitcoin worth  +$2 Million to Donald Trump’s campaign to "put an end to the Biden Admin's war on crypto."
On one hand, my first reaction is why on earth would you give away your precious Bitcoin to any politician? But on the other hand, it's kinda a power move. Bitcoin is now political. Bitcoin is now a topic in the upcoming US election.
The reasoning is worth the read: https://x.com/tyler/status/1803872859938549920

➡'Michael Dell, CEO of multi-billion dollar tech firm Dell Technologies, just dipped his toes into the Bitcoin waters, and this recent jest did make a splash.
It all started when Dell tweeted “Scarcity creates value.” Enter Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy’s possibly Bitcoin-obsessed executive chairman, who couldn’t resist chiming in with a hashtagged reply saying “Bitcoin is Digital Scarcity.” Dell, apparently intrigued, hit that retweet button faster than you can say “blockchain.”
The real kicker here is this: Dell later shared a meme of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, probably generated by AI or photoshopped to show the blue fuzzball munching on Bitcoin instead of his usual chocolate chip treats.
Dell Technologies is sitting comfortably with $34.6 billion in current assets (including a not-too-shabby $5.8 billion in cash), there’s no mention of Bitcoin anywhere in their recent filings. So, for now, this looks more like a playful flirtation than a full-on pursuit of Bitcoin.' - Crypto Briefing (Picture 3)

If Dell were to implement a Bitcoin treasury strategy, it would be by far the largest corporation to do so. As a founder-CEO-led company, Dell has the visionary leadership required to make such a bold move. Although we all know that cash is like a melting ice cube.

22nd of June:
➡Bitcoin dips 3,5% as the German government sells $325 million BTC over two days. This, and that total outflows last week was $544.1 million.

24th of June:
➡Mt. Gox will begin Bitcoin repayments starting at the beginning of July 2024.

➡Metaplanet issues ¥1 billion in 0.5% bonds; proceeds to fund additional purchases of $BTC.

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:
On the 19th of June:
👉🏽 Nvidia is now larger than:
1. GDP of every country in the world except 7
2. The entire Crypto market combined
3. 5x the market cap of Tesla
4. 6x the market cap of Walmart
5. The market cap of the entire French stock market
6. Canada's GDP plus $1.2 trillion in cash
7. 13x the market cap of AMD
8. 3x the GDP of the city of Los Angeles
9. Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway COMBINED
10. Collective net worth of the 12 richest people in the world

Nvidia's market cap is now worth more than the entire US oil and gas industry.
It's also worth more than every building in New York City COMBINED.
Since October 2023, Nvidia has added $2.3 TRILLION in market cap.

Funny stat: Nvidia insiders are selling the stock at the fastest pace in years.
Jensen Huang just sold another $31 million of NVDA. That brings his total sales this week to over $90 million. It’s his largest cluster of sales in 19 years. But bear in mind this is just a tiny fraction of his total holdings. Shit, I would sell some if I had some.

🏦Banks:
👉🏽 No news

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

Let's start this segment with a the quote:
'Ferguson’s Law states that any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defense will not stay great for very long. True of Hapsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire.' -Niall Ferguson

On the 17th of June:
👉'The US Treasury estimates net interest costs on federal debt will hit a record $890 billion in 2024.
This would be $331 billion higher than a year ago and almost double the amount from 2022.
To put this into perspective, net interest expenses will be ~3% of the ENTIRE US GDP, the highest in over 30 years and higher than World War II levels.
On a non-net basis, interest payments have already surpassed $1 trillion when annualized.
Total interest payments are set to reach as high as $1.6 trillion by the end of the year if the Fed does not cut rates.
The debt crisis is an understatement.' - TKL (Picture 4)

On the 18th of June:
👉'The Bank of England pays out so much interest on bank reserves that it impacts the UK’s fiscal situation. This is part of the overall “fiscal dominance” situation and is common to many countries, but accounting treatments differ.' - Lyn Alden

The UK but also other countries are now spending more and more tax revenue on past debt rather than on future growth.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-13/boe-reserves-enter-uk-election-debate-as-politicians-chase-cash

👉🏽 On this day the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) boots the 2024 US budget deficit estimate to 1.9$T from 1.5$T.
Classic! What is 0.4T between friends, right?
CBO's 10-year projections have historically underestimated federal debt by an average of 58% (using data from 2006-2023).
Thus, their $50 trillion deficit estimate is more than likely to actually be $75T. Oh, how I love data!

On the 19th of June:
(Picture 5)
👉'RE: The Goldman report on foreign UST demand, a picture is worth 1,000 words:
Total US Federal debt 1990-present in blue.
Total foreign holdings of USTs in green.
Foreign official (CB) holdings of USTs in red.
"Mind the Gap".' - Luke Gromen

So you might wonder who is buying all of the debt (USTs)? The answer is simple:
The Fed, US banks, US retail.
Hard to get inflation under control when the gap is being filled in with the printing press...

👉'Japan's biggest banks (Norinchukin is Japan's 5th largest bank with $840 billion in assets) today the proverbial canary stepped on a neutron bomb inside the Japanese coalmine because according to Nikkei, Norinchukin Bank "will sell more than 10 trillion yen ($63 billion) of its holdings of U.S. and European government bonds during the year ending March 2025 as it aims to stem its losses from bets on low-yield foreign bonds, a main cause of its deteriorating balance sheet, and lower the risks associated with holding foreign government bonds.' -Zerohedge
Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/music-just-stopped-banking-giant-norinchukin-liquidate-63-billion-treasuries-and-european

Is this the reason why the Japanese Yen is against the dollar hitting levels not seen since 1990?
Now just read the headlines above again and ask yourself: Is this the reason why better should a bit own Bitcoin?

If not, just read the following statement:

👉'The US debt stampede is back: federal debt jumps by $70BN in one day to a record $34.750 trillion, the biggest one-day jump since February.' - Zerohedge

👉🏽 'UK inflation has dropped to the magic level of 2.0%! The last time UK inflation was at the target of the Bank of England was three years ago.
So expect central bank policymakers to cheer their achievement but not to say a word about the fact that consumer prices rose by a staggering 21% in those three years.
For central banks, the arbitrarily chosen 12-month rate of change in prices is the only thing that counts.
The good news is that this will open the door to rate cuts, providing more liquidity for financial markets.' -Jeroen Blokland

On the 21st of June:
👉🏽'To meet reformed EU fiscal rules, Italy and France would have to go for fiscal consolidations over 2025-2028 that are larger than during the Euro Crisis (2011-2014). Spain has to do about half.
Do we properly remember the effects and political debates of €zone austerity?' - Phillip Heimberger (Picture 6)

Remember Draghi, former ECB president 'Whatever it takes'. The above is just another example of a one-size-fits-all approach that does not work.

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:
I want to give you two video's.
First video Jack Mallers: There is no second Best (BTC Prague 2024 Keynote)
“A failure to understand proof of work is a failure to understand Bitcoin.”
Jack opens his keynote with this quote by Gigi, and closes this comparison of bitcoin and altcoins: “We can't decide for you. We can educate you.” — Jack Mallers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--IFcOIEfl4&t=510s

Second video Lyn Alden: Lyn Alden is a macroeconomist and investment strategist. In this interview, they discuss the role of the Fed and central banks, fractional reserve vs free banking, how bitcoin could change these dynamics and if we should actually end the Federal Reserve System.
“We actually now have ways to do fast settlement…payments and settlements that can’t be reversed, it’s starting to show that maybe you actually don’t even need a central bank.” — Lyn Alden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdEJHUqT0XE

Only invest in Bitcoin what you can’t afford to have gradually stolen from you by the government.

Credit: I have used multiple sources!
My savings account: Bitcoin
The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. 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.

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.
#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr
  #plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption
https://m.primal.net/IweL.jpg
https://m.primal.net/IweO.jpg
https://m.primal.net/IweQ.jpg
https://m.primal.net/IweV.jpg
https://m.primal.net/IweX.jpg
https://m.primal.net/Iweb.jpg


Noderunners🧡💜
https://m.primal.net/IsEK.mov


🧠Quote(s) of the week:

"Bitcoin is a strange game where the only winning move is to play." -Bitstein

'I’m prepared to lose everything over Bitcoin. Everything I have is riding on this one trade. If Bitcoin fails, I will be absolutely wrecked. It will take years to recover.
I told myself a long time ago I’d rather lose everything than miss out on the most asymmetric opportunity of my lifetime.
I bought the top in 2021. I purchased the bottom in 2022. I’m still buying now.
I’m more allocated as a percentage of my portfolio to Bitcoin than I have ever been before.
This may seem irresponsible as fuck but when you see the world through the Bitcoin lens it makes much more sense. It’s perfect math.
I don’t know how many fully longed degenerate Bitcoin hodlers are out there riding this colossal Bitcoin wave with me but you’re all fucking legends in my book.' -The Bitcoin Therapist

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

9th of June:
➡ Paraguay is earning more money selling its energy to Bitcoin miners than by selling it to Brazil.
'Paraguay to sell excess hydro-energy to miners as part of its new Economic Development strategy.
Paraguay's Itaipu hydro-power station is one of the world's biggest, yet only 20% of the generated power is used.' - Bitcoin Archive

10th of June:
➡ If we took the official inflation rate Bitcoin would have to hit $79,000 to reach a new all-time high. But we all know the real inflation is much higher. (Picture 1)

➡ 'Canadian public company DeFi Technologies has adopted Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. It just bought 110 BTC.' - Bitcoin Magazine
The game theory associated with putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet is starting to heat up. (more on that later on)
Funny isn't it, a 'defi' company buying Bitcoin. No NFT, no Crapyto....Bitcoin.

'The three newest public companies to announce they have added Bitcoin to their balance sheets—Defi Technologies, Semler Scientific, and Metaplanet—are all up between 30-50% over the past 5 days'

11th of June:
➡Last week I mentioned that Metaplanet directors authorized the purchase of an additional ¥250 million of Bitcoin. Now this week  Metaplanet jumped 9.88% after announcing its third Bitcoin purchase. Call it conviction.

12th of June:
➡Trump pushing Bitcoin as a tool for US Energy is an amazing turnaround. 2024-2028 is going to be insane.

➡World's largest bank, ICBC, says "Bitcoin retains scarcity similar to gold and solves gold's divisibility and portability issues."

➡Taunton Firefighters become the fourth union in the US to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet.

13th of June:
➡Supply on exchanges fell to ~939K BTC, the lowest since 2021.

➡ERCOT recommends (Senate Committee on Business and Commerce) that Bitcoin mining be integrated as a Controllable Load Resource to ensure grid reliability.
'𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡:
ERCOT runs the power grid in Texas to make sure everyone gets electricity.
Bitcoin miners can turn off their big power using mining machines quickly, which helps ERCOT manage the grid better during high demand.
This helps ERCOT avoid blackouts, and Bitcoin miners get paid for helping and can save money on their operations.' -Explainbriefly

I love the following nostr:npub1trr5r2nrpsk6xkjk5a7p6pfcryyt6yzsflwjmz6r7uj7lfkjxxtq78hdpu  quote: "Once politicians and tax authorities learn that other people are willing to *pay them* to stabilize their energy grids and expand electricity production and bootstrap green energy, it’s game over for mainstream Bitcoin mining denialism."

➡Microstrategy is raising $500M through convertible senior notes to buy more Bitcoin. With over 214,400 BTC already, the company remains the largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder.

➡'Australia’s largest bank just put the Bitcoin ETF [IBTC] onto its trading platform! Commonwealth Bank of Australia has 17 million customers!' - BitcoinArchive

➡Biden’s SEC is suing Coinbase in federal court arguing it doesn’t have a right to exist as an exchange. At the same time, the Biden campaign is preparing to accept crypto donations via Coinbase. A freaking clown show!
On the other side of the aisle. Trump had a dinner with Bitcoin mining executives. A few days later... check out the 15th of June.

14th of June:
➡MicroStrategy increased its offering by $200m for a total of $700 MILLION to buy more.

15th of June:
➡BIDEN ADMIN TO ATTEND BITCOIN ROUNDTABLE WITH KEY CONGRESSIONAL OFFICIALS IN DC
‘The primary objective of this meeting is to strategize on how to keep "Bitcoin and blockchain innovation in the United States.”’ - Dylan LeClair

➡T-Mobile, partly owned by the German state and which owns T-Mobile US and Magenta, the world's largest telecom company with 3 times the footprint of Verizon and double the footprint of AT&T just announced that they are currently running Bitcoin nodes and they are planning to launch into Bitcoin mining. This has to be one of the most bullish news to come out of BTC Prague.

➡Brazil's largest bank now offers Bitcoin trading to 60M customers via its Ion app!

17th of June:
➡'We are currently 33 days into a Bitcoin miner capitulation, with the average duration over the past five years being 41 days.
Miner addresses collectively hold a substantial treasury of 700,000 BTC, but their balance has decreased by 30,000 BTC since October.
This period marks the longest distribution phase for miners since 2017, adding to headwinds.
Despite this, the hash rate has only decreased by 12% from its peak as unprofitable miners continue to sell Bitcoin to sustain operations.' - James van Straten

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:
24th of May:

👉🏽 Magnificent 7 stocks have officially exceeded $15 trillion in combined market cap for the 1st time ever.
The group's combined market cap now equals over 50% of US GDP.
In just 2 months the Magnificent 7's value has surged by a whopping $2 trillion.
The Magnificent 7 stocks have rallied by over 60% over the last 12 months compared to only a 20% gain in the other 493 S&P 500 stocks.
Combined they reflect over a record 30% of the entire S&P 500.
Big tech is getting even bigger. This is unsustainable and quite frankly it's the magnificent 1: NVIDIA.
From the movie The Big Short: 'They call him chicken little, bubble boy!'

🏦Banks:
👉🏽No news

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

Let's start this segment with the following statement by Fed Chair Powell:
'Fed Chair Powell says the Fed does not have high confidence in their forecasts.'
I mean who has...? They have like 1400 PhD at the office, but hey..what about forecasting?  This is quite reassuring right? Monetary policy is just vibes right now. Ffs.

On the 9th of June
👉🏽How expensive is the US national debt and how dangerous the US debt crisis has become?
'The average interest rate on $34.6 trillion of Treasury debt is now 3.2%, the highest since 2010.
$5.9 trillion of the national debt is in Treasury Bills, with an average interest rate of 5.4%.
Meanwhile, a record $9.3 trillion of national debt is going to mature within the next 12 months.
Even if the Fed cuts rates by 1-2 times, this debt will have to be refinanced at much higher rates.
All while annualized interest payments have already surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in history.' -TKL

The federal government's current annualized interest payment expenditure stands at $1.025 trillion, slightly surpassing the annualized defense expenditure of $1.022 trillion. To make it even worse the US government expenditures as % of GDP just hit 43%, matching levels seen during the 2008 Financial Crisis. To put this into perspective, spending as a % of GDP is just 1% below World War 2 levels. Even at the peak of World War 1, US government spending as a % of GDP was 20 percentage points lower.
From my point of view the US has reached the point of no return, no matter the outcome of the upcoming US election.
It took 220 years for the U.S. to accumulate 11 trillion dollars in debt. This is the same amount of debt that the U.S. just added since 2020. Unsustainable. Why?
'In the first 8 months of Fiscal Year 2024, the US deficit hit a whopping $1.2 trillion, or $4.9 billion PER DAY.
In May alone, deficit spending was $348 billion or $11.2 billion a day, according to the CBO.
Over the last 12 months, the US deficit totaled $1.7 trillion equaling 6.2% of US GDP.
Deficit spending as a % of GDP is above all previous recessionary levels except for the 2008 Financial Crisis, the 2020 pandemic, and World War 2.
At the same time, government expenditures hit $6.5 trillion which is 23% of US GDP.
The government is spending as if we are in a recession.' Unsustainable. (Picture 2) No political party will stop this.

👉🏽Bureau of Labor Statistics, making up numbers: Remember. Jobs are everything.
'The difference between the headline jobs number and the household survey hit 4.1 million in May, the largest difference in history.
The household survey is important because workers are only counted once, even if they hold more than one job.
This data shows that over the last 6 months, 1 MILLION Americans have become unemployed.
The number of people working MULTIPLE jobs in the US hit a near-record of 8.4 MILLION in May 2024.
Many Americans are now working multiple jobs in an effort to fight inflation.'  -TKL

On the 11th of June:
M2 is now positive with rates at 5.5%. And rate cuts/QE/YCC are just a matter of time. The first-rate cut is already in place by the ECB, probably the Fed will do the same in the next two/three months.
So why is M2 important, what should you take away from this all?
M2 (money supply growing) + Debt growing = liquidity growing.
More money (liquidity) means higher asset prices, but it also means more monetary inflation. Oh well, it's about to get really fun in the upcoming months. (Picture 3)

👉🏽'Sky News admits the official inflation data DOES NOT accurately reflect the HUGE increase in prices.'
Great video: https://x.com/RadarHits/status/1800089422744195337

James Lavish: 'Controlling party politicians and establishment economists will never outwardly admit it, but consumers are smart enough to know that prices have not just settled at levels far higher than just a few years ago but are *still rising*.

What they tell you is that 'inflation is easing' or 'inflation is falling'. And what they show you is a highly manipulated index that *admits* a month-to-month or year-over-year measure.
But never this, the ongoing impact to you, the consumer.' (Picture 4)

On the 12th of June:
US inflation falls to 3.3%, lower than expectations.

On the 13th of June:
Yellen: We are creating jobs at a very rapid pace.
(Picture 5)
The US lost 1.2 Million full-time jobs during the last 12 months, but government jobs are booming. Let’s celebrate this job wonder.

On the 14th of June:
Argentina's monthly inflation rate in May was the lowest since 2022, dropping for the fifth consecutive month to 4.2% amid an austerity drive by President Milei.
The annual inflation rate has fallen from 133% in December to 40%. Wonder how? Cut government spending! Don't get me wrong I am not celebrating because this is a monthly inflation number. Now add that to the inflation from the past 10 years. And compound it. It is still off the charts. But hey... baby steps. Slash spending, balance budgets, and bring down taxes so the economy has more to work with. But apparently, that’s too complicated for most governments to figure out.

On the 15th of June:
👉🏽'Institutions like the IMF keep wading into countries' debt problems by getting them into more debt.
There are hardly any countries that went from "developing" to "developed" status over the past five decades. The global monetary system is structured to keep countries dependent.' (Picture 6)
I have said it before and will say it again, especially after reading Alex Gladstein's great book & articles, the IM is just a modern-day colonizer.

👉🏽The cost of insuring against a French default (CDS price) has shot up by 16bps this week. The probability of default is priced at 3.5%. The cost of insuring France's debt against default and the risk premium investors demand to hold French government debt both reached their highest since 2022.

👉🏽 Canada bankrupted 532 companies. 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘀! Canada is a G7 nation. Cleaning the system I guess, low interest rates, and cheap money allowed a lot of businesses to get off the ground that simply were not viable long-term businesses...or is Canada the new Iceland with many millionaires with billions in debt

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:
The theme of this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF): Reclaim Democracy.

Great article by Lyn Alden:
'Implications of Open Monetary and Information Networks'
https://www.lynalden.com/open-networks/

TLDR: Open systems and you really should check out Nostr if you haven't already.

Only invest in Bitcoin what you can’t afford to have gradually stolen from you by the government.

Credit: I have used multiple sources!
My savings account: Bitcoin
The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. 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.

Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats.
#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr
  #plebchain

#BTC

#Bitcoin

#zap🧡

#plebchain

#grownostr

#stacksats

#bitcoineducation

#adoption
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Due to sickness no Weekly Recap this week.

Study, learn, hodl, decouple.
#bitcoin                    🧡
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My savings account: Bitcoin
The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.

Felipe - BitcoinFriday

#zap                      🧡   #nostr                        #BTC                       #Bitcoin                      #plebchain                         #grownostr    #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption
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