BTC Daily Intelligence Bulletin (DIB)
Block: 837,541
DTG/ICOD: 0800EST 03Apr24
Precedence: Routine (RR)
Controls: Public Release
QQQQ
__________________________
BLUF: Taiwan Earthquake Kills 9, Damages Much / Israel Accidental Strike Kills Aid Workers / NATO Works to Build Ukraine Long-Term Funding / Baltimore Ship Channels Open / FL Supreme Court Upholds Abortion Rulings / USG Moving Seized BTC / ARK BTC ETF Has 2 Days of Outflows / Gold, Oil Up, Trust Down

Market Data: Price: 1 BTC= $66,124, 29.09 oz Gold, .15 Median US House
24hr Hi: $66,664/ Lo: $64,559
Vol: $41B (Up 9%)
Mkt Cap: $1.3T (Up 1%)
HashRate: 641 EH/s
Avg Fees: 5,371 sats/tx (Down 22%)
Nodes: 18,167

---Reports---
-International Events-
1. Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in 25 years kills at least 9: Hundreds of others were injured in the 7.4-magnitude tremor off the island’s east coast, which was felt across the region and prompted tsunami warnings that were later lifted. TSMC has closed one of their chip factories due to the earthquake. (NBC)

2. Israel draws fire for death of aid workers as charities pull out: Some of Israel's closest allies, including the United States, on Tuesday condemned the deaths of seven aid workers who were killed by airstrikes in Gaza — a loss that prompted multiple charities to suspend food deliveries to Palestinians on the brink of starvation. (euronews)

3. NATO ministers mull 100 billion euro military fund for Ukraine: NATO foreign ministers met on Wednesday to discuss how to put military support for Ukraine on a long-term footing, including a proposal for a 100 billion euro ($107 billion) five-year fund and a plan seen as a way to "Trump-proof" aid for Kyiv. (Reuters)

-US Events-
1. Second channel opened allowing some vessels to bypass wreckage at the Baltimore bridge collapse site: Work is ongoing to open a third channel that will allow larger vessels to pass through the bottleneck and restore more commercial activity, officials announced at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. A tug and fuel barge were the first vessels through the first temporary opening yesterday. (AP)

2. Democrats Descend on Florida Following State Supreme Court Abortion Rulings: The Florida Supreme Court issued two abortion-related rulings on Monday, unleashing “a frenzy of campaigning among Democrats eager to turn the Sunshine State back into the nation’s most important battleground,” The state’s high court upheld a 15-week limit on abortion, while also paving the way for a six-week abortion limit that was passed last year. (Breitbart)

-Regulatory and Legal-
1. Bitcoin advocate Max Keiser slams Javier Milei’s crypto policy: Javier Milei, who secured the Argentine presidential seat last December, has introduced aggressive economic policies to rescue the country’s collapsing economy and battle the consistent devaluation of the Argentine peso, which is down 99% against the U.S. dollar since 2008. According to Keiser, the Argentine president’s decision to lump Bitcoin with crypto is a “rookie mistake.” He contended that the recent legislation, which identified Bitcoin as part of the crypto ecosystem, has set Milei’s economic reform agenda back by years. (CryptoNews)

-Institutional Concerns-
1. Feds Move Bitcoin From Seized Silk Road Wallet Holding $2 Billion in Funds: Blockchain data shows that on Tuesday morning, a wallet tagged as belonging to the US DOJ started moving some of the $2 billion worth of held BTC to an address believed to be crypto exchange Coinbase.  (Decrypt)

2, Cathie Wood’s ARK Bitcoin ETF has record $87M outflows, surpassing GBTC: The outflows from the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) was $87.5 million on April 2 — roughly 1,300 BTC — according to data from Farside Investors. Today marked the second consecutive day of outflows for ARKB, which lost $300,000 in assets on its first-ever day of outflows on April 1. (CoinTelegraph)

-Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)-
1. Chinese Government Reveals Public Blockchain Platform for Belt and Road Initiative: Since 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative has formed the centerpiece of China’s foreign policy under Xi Jinping. It aims to extend the state’s influence through development projects in Asia, Africa and South America. The Chinese government recently unveiled plans for a new blockchain platform designed to enhance cross-border cooperation and reduce friction between Belt and Road participants. (CCN) (AC-Similar to the BRICS effort to establish a CBDC, this effort by China to establish a blockchain-based CBDC specifically for the Belt and Road Initiative would encompass many smaller countries and even compete with the US Dollar in world trade. This is the second major competitor to the USD as the world's reserve currency.)

-Economic Indicators-
1. Gold Notches Record High Again: Gold prices rose to fresh record highs of $2,283 an ounce on Wednesday (TradingEconomics)

2. Oil Prices Stay Firm Ahead of OPEC+ Gathering: WTI crude futures held around $85 a barrel on Wednesday while Brent crude futures remained near $89 a barrel. (TradingEconomics)

3. US Job Openings Top Expectations: The number of job openings went up by 8,000 from the previous month to 8.756 million in February 2024, above market expectations of 8.75 million. (TradingEconomics)

-Security Incidents and Concerns-
1. Cyber review board blames cascading Microsoft failures for Chinese hack: A federal review board concluded in a scathing report Tuesday that the theft of a Microsoft signing key used to spy on senior U.S. officials was a preventable failure caused by the company’s failure to appropriately prioritize security. The CSRB, established by President Biden, lays the blame for the incident squarely on Microsoft. (CyberScoop)

-Bitcoin Community-
1. Arkon Energy Strikes Deal With Bitmain for 27,700 Bitcoin Mining Rigs: Ohio-based bitcoin mining and colocation company Arkon Energy announced its procurement of 27,700 bitcoin mining rigs from Bitmain, equaling a hashpower of 6 exahash per second (EH/s). (BitcoinCom)

-Bitcoin Sentiment-
1. Fear(0)/Greed(100) Index: 71/100 (Down 8 pts)

Analyst Comments (AC): Commodity prices are indicative of trust in fiat initiatives such as currency or securities markets. As prices in gold, oil, housing and bitcoin continue to rise, it portrays a declining trust in the promises of the US government in upholding its obligations. There are numerous possible reasons for this phenomena, including the debt burden of the government, mistrust in politics, global insecurity, or election season. Although these reasons can be viewed as the cause of demand in hard assets, the underlying fundamental is that fiat promises only last as long as they are kept. Populations are now discounting those promises.

Follow us on NOSTR:  npub1qktts9naunvjdwsktq5xjdhwh539xt4x0mqj4yxq0q9dvm03ljvs6sms0r
____________________
Analyst: BV2A
END REPORT
NNNN
*NSTR-Nothing Significant To Report
https://m.primal.net/HiZQ.jpg


Really some of the best interviews.  Non-confrontational interviewer with just the right amount of disagreeableness.


Hardcore History.  Easy recommend.


Fun fact, this is how you ensure all future children are Dr. Manhattans.

nostr:note1t2n932ja794u9cymvvycgyge3fcj92jghrc3d9gvluvzaws53dyq0zd9j9


It's great being in the future.


The market will sort this out.


Looking forward to spending some time getting a better handle on this thing.


If you haven’t read nostr:npub1g0587hzzckcncxfm78n0996qe2s58nspy29wf02tqcj5sdzcpj4q6j40hv's books yet, you absolutely must

Whitney is a national treasure!!
https://m.primal.net/Hpuz.jpg
https://m.primal.net/HpvA.jpg


Absolute 🔥🔥🔥 from nostr:npub1g0587hzzckcncxfm78n0996qe2s58nspy29wf02tqcj5sdzcpj4q6j40hv

Her books are an absolute must read!

We would love to have Whitney on the show and/or come talk in the Bitcoin Veterans Citadel at nostr:npub1rwh33t5x8n7czknhts5fg0v0fml8mkl7neaarksumkkf8d679qrqcz7avv

LIKE, COMMENT, REPOST AND ZAP (WHITNEY) IF YOU AGREE!!
https://m.primal.net/Hpuy.jpg


# "Free" is Slavery

Thae Young Ho is the highest ranking defector to ever have come out of North Korea. He was an ambassador to Sweden and then to England. At the Oslo Freedom Forum back in 2019, I got to talk to him for a few hours, and it's a conversation I'll never forget.

It's rare that we get such a high ranking official to come out of the country to tell us how they operate, but Mr. Thae is one of those people. He was able to enlighten many of us what North Korea's process for the currency revaluation was and why they backtracked. He also told us about how they had to execute someone so that the regime wouldn't get blamed. If you read any works of Rene Girard, that shouldn't surprise you, especially given that it's an atheist country.

## Kim's Rise to Power

But the story that struck me the most was about Kim Il Sung's rise to power. Mr. Thae explained that after being installed as the hand-picked leader of North Korea in 1945, he wasn't that popular. His Korean was marginal as he had grown up mostly in China. His education was a scant 8 years, all of it in Chinese and communist guerrilla tactics weren't exactly beloved by the people. Yet if we look at how he's looked at in North Korea today, he's essentially viewed as a divinity. Somehow, this poorly educated, barely comprehensible puppet of the Soviet Union became the god of North Korea.

So what happened? How did he gain all that power? What did he do to take control? You would think that given what we're generally told about communism that it would be based completely on fear and ruthlessness that consolidated his power. And certainly, there was plenty of that. But according to Mr. Thae, Kim Il Sung relied on something else: free stuff.

## The Cult of Free

Everyone loves free stuff. Think about how popular the free stuff section on your local craigslist is. I'll bet you anything it's the most visited and monitored part of the site and rarely will you find stuff that's that valuable that someone hasn't taken already. It's part of the human instinct to try to get something for nothing and Kim Il Sung exploited it.

As with most socialist/communist programs, the way he won over the North Korean people was with lots of entitlements. They got free health care, free food, free housing, a guaranteed job. They got everything they needed. And with Soviet subsidization, it worked great. People supported him and for a time, a lot of international observers thought that North Korea was doing better than the South.

But there's a darker side to "free stuff." What happens when they run out of a scarce resource? How do you determine who gets it? Say there's medicine that will help two different people, but there's only enough for one. Who gets it?

In a free market, prices help you decide that, and a high price spurs greater production of the scarce resource so that the prices come down. But if it's free, what do you do? When you have a central controller of everything, the answer is obvious. You reward those that are loyal and punish those that are not. Instead of money being your currency, it was loyalty to the regime that was your currency.

## Markets Build Community

Soon, the only people that really got the free stuff were near the top of the ideological hierarchy. Instead of prices determining what you got, it was your perceived compliance and loyalty to the regime that determined it.

In the absence of a market, compliance was what determined who got what. Mr. Thae's point of the story was that there's something sacred about market transactions. Market transactions cause both parties to have obligations to the other. There's a mutual desire to satisfy the other party and it binds us together in a community. That's precisely what they lacked in North Korea and why the regime was so powerful.

It's easy to listen to these stories and think of it as "out" there, that it's got nothing to do with us. But after listening to this story, I started thinking about what stuff I got for free from centralized entities. I get GMail for free. I get Facebook for free. I get YouTube for free. I realized that the cost of getting these things was indeed compliance. In these walled gardens, they can kick you out at any time and that is indeed what they do. The reason why these companies have so much power is because they give you this stuff in exchange for compliance. They give you this stuff to *enslave* you.

## Western Governments

Fact is, there's way more of the communist/socialist system of free embedded in our supposed democracies than we think. Remember during the pandemic how you had to get a vax to keep your job, visit your sick relatives or travel? There were people in the US suggesting that unvaxxed people should be denied health care services. Such tactics really only work when the service is "free." The central controller of the resource extracts its pound of flesh, just not in money. Many governments have gone down this route. We're much closer to communism in western societies than we'd like to believe.

Prices and paying for things are a good thing. They obligate both parties to the trade to satisfy the other. The instinct to get something for nothing is not one that builds civilization. The reason communism has led to tyranny every single time is because the central government ends up with all the resources and wields absolute power through "free" stuff.

Reject free. Pay for value.https://m.primal.net/HpeW.jpg


This whole planets on the Cobb!


Mine requires a submarine and a narnia wardrobe


But less few than yesterday!


Gorgeous.


Part of me wants the wealth to have a private chef. The other part wants the time to return to enjoy cooking for myself.


GM https://image.nostr.build/495c6ce7f9210baa5afed5b16adfe9d1af4e9225f88281f956e1a11ab580981a.jpg


Finding time to hear your friends out and provide value.


I'm going to need to read that thing in full. I want to know how they define anonymous.


Capeless heros abound.


Before I die I will build the house my grandchildren will live in.


Everytime I learn something new about bitcoin I get scared, and then I learn more about that thing and get comfy, then my comfort scares me and I learn more.


Why bother when the bank can buy them for you?


TFTC rip #492 with nostr:npub1guh5grefa7vkay4ps6udxg8lrqxg2kgr3qh9n4gduxut64nfxq0q9y6hjy and nostr:npub1az9xj85cmxv8e9j9y80lvqp97crsqdu2fpu3srwthd99qfu9qsgstam8y8  was extremely hopeful and based.


Nice drip


Them: “Alright, I converted my savings into #Bitcoin, set up my auto-DCA, and am focusing on my craft. What next?”

Me: https://image.nostr.build/ad36d221ac766b9b831536c82044684792b4c1defe13e5f634641250cc383fbe.jpg


I used to think to myself, I wish I could cull my twitter feed to bitcoin and macro and philosophy, but then I just found Nostr instead.


Trigun.


Trying to test my desktop zapping ability and I'm failing.  I'm sorry.


New to Nostr, new to Primal.net.  So far so good.  Staying humble.  Thanks for all you do.


The only non Satoshi:  CW. Law.


Humbull.


Idk who needs to hear this but,
nacho cheese, nacho corn.

🔑 🧀 🌽

https://image.nostr.build/f65d323d6f37ccbffe983a25200b1a300b0f5c7e1f48d3e86ee33cc900850ecb.jpg


Just gorgeous.


You would think a self-rug would require a magic carpet but in this case…


Perfect


https://youtu.be/Mw8HunixHP0?si=fU9e5CXBElPnCl2A
Really enjoy listening to nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s on "What Bitcoin Did" with nostr:npub1preu2djgj2ua47l277myu8ak30v95m6ar59n6k23tyu3ylkv53sskpeujk


This seems like more than rhyming.