@ Felipe

# 🧠Quote(s) of the week:

"If you are an entrepreneur, my recommended strategy is not [to] work yourself to death. Notice that there's $450T of capital in traditional 20th-century assets. There's $1T in bitcoin. Be the conduit to move the next trillion dollars from the old world to the new." —Michael Saylor

🧡Bitcoin news🧡

Because of the aftermath of Telegram founder Pavel Durov's arrest, this week's Weekly Recap is a bit later than normal. I really wanted to wait for some additional information on that case, more on that below in the segment 'Macro & Geopolitics'.

Just remember that: 'When platforms start to fall, protocols will remain. you can’t arrest email, http, or Nostr. Nostr has no CEO. X, telegram, rumble, can’t have free speech in a world where governments can compel to censor by threat of imprisonment.' - Damus

If we are using the same logic...People sell drugs on the streets of Paris or in Amsterdam. Should Macron or Halsema be arrested, innit? 'If Telegram can be banned because drug dealers use it to exchange information, then Mercedes should also be banned because they are used to transport drugs. Don't be fooled, freedom of speech is at stake.....'

If one of the founders of Twitter and Square is now telling you Bitcoin and NOSTR are the future, you might want to pay attention. NOSTR is the second most important technology in the world right now (after BTC)

Jack Dorsey explains why NOSTR is the most censorship-resistant social media platform.

The future of free speech is decentralization: https://x.com/primal_app/status/1812929737427169346

Full speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-40158eRqo

Anyway without further due...your next Weekly Recap:

On the 19th of August:

➡️15 of the 25 largest Hedge Funds have disclosed Bitcoin ETF holdings. BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF now has the third largest YTD flows among all Global ETFs. Bitcoin has shaken up the Wall St.

On the 21st of August:

➡️The scientific consensus (9 of the last 10 published papers) now supports the view that Bitcoin mining has benefits to both the environment and the energy grid.

On the 22nd of August:

➡️CEO of $1.5 TRILLION Franklin Templeton says Wall Street underestimates Bitcoin's enormous scale.

➡️Antpool mines a block including 9.515 Bitcoin ($583K) in fees.

➡️'Bitcoin processed $36.6 TRILLION of transactions in 2023. That's more than DOUBLE MasterCard + Visa combined.' -Bitcoin Archive

➡️'Gryphon Digital Mining acquires a Louisiana Bitcoin mining operation for $1.5M. The operation uses ultra-low-cost electricity at $0.01/kWh and is expected to generate $1M annually.' -Bitcoin News

➡️'The Salvadoran government has been buying 1 Bitcoin per day since March 16, accumulating 160 BTC ($10.31M). They now hold 5,850 BTC ($355.83M) with an average cost of $44,835 and a profit of $93.45M' -Bitcoin News

➡️ The Rational Root: Wrapping up stage 3

Fantastic chart and visual as always. Simple, yet effective in its purpose.

'Read the latest Bitcoin Strategy newsletter discussing the end of the recovery stage and how the current cycle is outperforming previous ones.'

Remember The stages of Bitcoin: 1. The Halving 2. The boring stage (we’re here) 3. The bullrun euforia 4. The bear market fear If you’re calmly DCAing during all of these stages you have understood Bitcoin.

➡️JPMorgan estimates the value of remaining unmined Bitcoin at $74B, at current prices.

On the 23rd of August:

➡️ Bitcoin ETFs saw $252 million in inflow on the 23rd of August, the highest in a month.

➡️Holding Bitcoin has been profitable for over 96% of its history.

On the 24th of August:

➡️The Ethereum Foundation dumped ~$100m worth of ETH to Kraken two days after Vitalik started "bullposting". I mean, the Ethereum Foundation IS doing great, they just sold $100M worth of ETH to pay their grants and salaries.

People who bought the 30% of ETH that wasn't pre-mined by the Foundation... Not doing so great

Ethereum just fell through a third and major technical support line. Next possible stop: 0.03 BTC. All shitcoins will fall to zero, eventually.

➡️Bitcoin and Digital Asset Companies become the single largest corporate PAC donors in the entire nation - Accounting for nearly 50% of all donations across every industry in 2024.

On the 25th of August:

➡️President Bukele: El Salvador is not only the safest country in the Western Hemisphere, but we also guarantee that you won’t be arrested, censored, or have your assets seized for exercising your right to free speech.

➡️Block generated $2.6 billion in Bitcoin revenue in Q2, bringing its total Bitcoin sales to over $5.3 billion for the year.

On the 26th of August:

➡️'ESMA releases 400-page report, with proposed disclosure regulations for anyone with > 17 new mining rigs, effectively making life extremely difficult for all commercial Bitcoin mining companies, and discouraging future commercial Bitcoin mining. Context: In Jan this year I wrote that ECB and ESMA (Securities and Markets Authority - like the SEC in the US) were working together on defacto bitcoin mining bans. Within 3 months we saw the first wave of evidence of that...' - Daniel Batten

This is not a surprise, the EU wanted to outright forbid Bitcoin mining. Regulation clownery.

Please read the full post here.

After doing that please contact @ODFoundation to see how you can help. Please support them this time, even if you were one of the people saying/thinking "It's not so bad" the first time they reached out and asked for your help.

➡️BlackRock's website reveals that their Strategic Global Bond Fund holds 32,000 shares of their Bitcoin ETF.

💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

On the 21st of August:

👉🏽The S&P 500 Now let's have a look at the S&P 500 denominate in Bitcoin (or be dominated by Bitcoin).

Now let's have a look at the S&P denominate in Gold.

On the 23rd of August:

👉🏽'Investors are losing faith in Ray Dalio’s risk strategy after a lackluster five-year run, and pulling out their cash— it’s been disappointing for a long time.' With a mere 5% Bitcoin allocation he would have outperformed all other funds. Source: https://fortune.com/2024/04/23/lackluster-returns-ray-dalio-investing-strategy-investors-pull-billions/

🏦Banks:

👉🏽No news

🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

I want to start this segment with the arrest of Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram. This occurred on the 24th of August in France. After the Olympics and that crazy opening ceremony you might say France is peak clown world.

Pavel is now facing 20 years in jail for refusing to censor his platform. The charges include terrorism, money laundering, and more—looks like they’re targeting anyone who defends free speech. Authorities claim that Telegram's lack of moderation and the instruments it provides (disposable numbers, and cryptocurrency) make it an accomplice in drug trafficking and fraud. If this happened to Mark Zuckerberg in Russia, every Western government would be going crazy.

Pavel Durov posted a now-famous photo in 2011 when Russia demanded Telegram censor accounts. Western governments and media cheered...

The hypocrisy and double standards are astounding. Why? A lawsuit claims Meta enables child abuse.

Instagram has a massive child exploitation problem, but no arrest for Zuck, as he censors free speech and gives governments backdoor access to user data. (more on that below on the 26th of August)

Bear in mind that Pavel Durov recently revealed to Tucker Carlson that the FBI approached a Telegram engineer, attempting to secretly hire him to install a backdoor that would allow U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on users. They're after him because Telegram doesn't bend the knee to their narrative control. If you want to see the full interview, click here: https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1827460234887008277

They're terrified of the truth getting out, so they label everything they can't control as 'terrorism' or 'hate speech'. It's the EU's latest move to strangle our right to speak freely, to share information without their Orwellian oversight.

This is about silencing dissent and controlling information. They want to turn the internet into another arm of their propaganda machine. We're watching freedom of speech being attacked right before our eyes.

Make no mistake, they’re using this to set a precedent which they will then use to go after Elon Musk and X. Elon should probably avoid traveling to Europe for now. Rumble CEO fled Europe after Pavel Durov’s arrest. Just look at what they did to Ross Ulbricht, that was a warning to everybody else. (read the Weekly Recap from two weeks ago)

I really want to emphasize that you should try Nostr before you need Nostr. 'Similar to how Bitcoin is purging money from the state’s control…. NOSTR is purging centralized media and speech from the government puppet media sources…there’s no NOSTR CEO to summon & testify in front of the elected clowns…' -Preston Pysh

'If there is a throat to choke, it will be choked. If there is a head to cut off, it will be cut off. Platform owners that bend the knee to totalitarianism will censor and deplatform you. Platform owners that do not comply will be arrested and threatened with the full force of “The Law.” Nostr is a Hydra. You cannot kill Nostr. There is no single throat to choke, no one head to cut off. Succeed in cutting off one head and two will grow in its place.' - Walker

On the 19th of August:

👉🏽'Global Liquidity is moving up fast.

Do it yourself in Trading View enter this formula and hit ENTER. (FRED:M2SL+ECONOMICS:EUM2*FX:EURUSD+LSE_DLY:JPM2/FX:USDJPY+ECONOMICS:CNM2/FX:USDCNH)/1000000000000 This is the US, EU, Japan, and China M2 Money Supply. $80.75 Trillion.' - MartyParty

If only there were an asset we knew of whose price action was closely correlated with global liquidity….

I will give you a hint, it starts with the letter B.

It doesn't matter what Bitcoin is doing right now. You know it will all start to rise in late September as the first-rate cute comes in (more on that below 23rd of Aug.) and global liquidity rises.

Money market funds climb to an all-time high of $6.24 trillion, 5x the Bitcoin market cap. As soon as interest rates are lowered again, this pent-up liquidity will come onto the market.

Hello, liquidity!

👉🏽'Kamala Harris says she would raise the corporate tax rate to 28% if she is elected president.

The corporate tax rate has been 21% since 2018. This would be the first hike in the corporate tax rate in over 40 years.'

Kamala's policies so far: -Price Controls -28% corporate tax -44.6% capital gains tax (the highest in history -The proposal includes a 25% tax on unrealized gains for high-net-worth individuals. -25% tax on unrealized gains

A real expert on economics & fiscal policy on this one.

'Has anyone told her how taxing unrealized gains worked out for Norway? Norway expected an additional $150M in annual tax revenue, but caused $54B in wealth to flee the country, costing them $600M in annual tax revenue.' - Jameson Lopp

It's property confiscation. Plain and simple. (Please read the book 'The Sovereign Individual')

Please read the following tweet all the way through, an excellent analysis by Max Meyer: https://x.com/mualphaxi/status/1826082987609407528

But just to show you how dumb these people are or how they shamelessly will continue gaslighting the people/ the public.

Harris-Biden Commerce Sec. Gina Raimondo says she doesn't believe new government data that shows almost a million of the jobs the Harris-Biden admin claimed to have "created" don't actually exist.

Reporter: Nearly a million jobs "created" since Kamala took office do not exist. Raimondo: “I don’t believe it because I’ve never heard Trump say anything truthful.” Reporter: "It is from the Bureau of Labor." Raimondo: "I'm not familiar with that."

She isn't familiar with the Bureau of Labor, really Gina! Either she is incompetent or she is lying. There is no middle ground.

Just to give you a hint as to why she is lying: Biden's commerce secretary Gina Raimondo (who runs the US Bureau of Economic Analysis) is "not familiar" with the Bureau of Labor Statistics which makes up the monthly jobs report.

Here is the video if for some reason you think I made this up as this sounds stupid as hell: https://x.com/RNCResearch/status/1826374800899752438

Now don't get me wrong. I do not support Trump or any politician (I am based in the EU), but for the love of god, we the people need to start thinking and use that tool called BRAINS!

On the 20th of August:

👉🏽'US new bankruptcy filings hit 6,276 in Q2 2024, the highest level since Q2 2017. The number of companies declaring bankruptcy has DOUBLED in just 2 years. Chapter 7 filings, also known as liquidation bankruptcies, reached a whopping 3,151 in Q2, the most since the 2020 Pandemic.

Chapter 11 cases hit 2,462 last quarter, exceeding every other quarter in the previous 10 years. Furthermore, Chapter 13 and other bankruptcies rose to 469 and 194, respectively. Bankruptcies have been rising at a pace seen during major economic downturns.' -TKL

I don't think this is a bad thing though. Rising bankruptcies are the natural clearing process of cleansing the economy of bad ideas or operators. But combine this with the Fake Jobs numbers, Fake inflation, and Fake GDP... you have to wonder if the US economy is on the brink.

But just have a look at the current situation:

1. US job additions revised lower by 818,000, the largest revision since 2009
2. The US unemployment rate is up to 4.3%, the highest since 2021
3. 5 out of the last 6 jobs reports have now been revised LOWER
4. A record number of Americans are now working multiple jobs
5. The US Dollar has lost 25% of its purchasing power in 4 years
6. 11% of credit card balances in the US are now delinquent, the highest in over a decade

👉🏽There is a lot of talk about the upcoming pensions and healthcare entitlements crisis in the US. Folks, compared with Europe the US is in good shape.

Europe is on its way to becoming second to Japan, however with generous social systems. Who is supposed to pay for that?' -Miachel A Arouet

Gladly the EU is not a country. Countries are sovereign and the EU is not. But the EU is too interlinked. Even though the Netherlands and the North may have better policies in terms of funding pensions, they may have to fund the shortages in the South, AND their governments are broke.

European countries will need to increase the retirement age up to 70-75. It's mathematics, there's no way around it: we can't have more people in retirement than working.

What will happen? At a certain point, the young/talented/smart people will flee. Or the younger generation will pay for it by being in debt, with no future, higher taxes, and less chance of owning homes. The young should invest and demand the government privatize healthcare and schools. (ergo, last bit will not happen)

On the 23rd of August:

👉🏽 RFK Jr. says the Democratic Party "has become the party of the war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big money." He said that after officially withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election and endorsing Donald Trump.

👉🏽If Gold rises 33% YoY you know something in the world economy is breaking. Probably not a coincidence. Gold is simply a reliable long-term wealth protection tool.

👉🏽The Fed pivot is closer than ever...

Here are Fed Chair Powell's remarks: 1. "The time has come for Fed policy to adjust" (Confirms Sept rate cut, doesn't indicate whether 25bps or 50bps.) 2. The Fed "will do everything" to support a strong labor market 3. The Fed does not welcome further weakening of the labor market 4. Confidence has grown that inflation is heading to 2% 5. The balance of risks to Fed mandates has changed 6. Inflation has declined significantly toward the goal

On the 24th of August:

👉🏽Meloni's government reduces the arrival of illegal immigrants by 60% in the first quarter of the year.

-It has withdrawn all types of payment or subsidy. -If you enter illegally you go back home. They don't go to Italy anymore. In Spain, arrivals have increased by 277%.

Now this post isn't about immigrants, because the 'problem' will just shift to other countries like Spain, Germany, or the Netherlands. The main message of this post is that at least she seems to be doing something, unlike most other European governments. It’s not everything she promised but it’s a start. Personally, I want to see that from other European governments.

On the 26th of August:

👉🏽Zuckerberg regrets working with the Biden-Harris administration to censor Covid era information online and admitted three things: 1. Biden-Harris Admin "pressured" Facebook to censor Americans. 2. Facebook censored Americans. 3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Hello Freedom of SPEECH! Now go back to the top of this segment and tell me how hypocritical the Durov situation is.

'In a bombshell letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, Zuckerberg expresses deep regret over Meta's compliance with Biden Administration pressure to censor COVID-19 content in 2021. The tech mogul admits they should have been more outspoken against government-led censorship attempts. Zuckerberg reveals the White House repeatedly urged Meta to remove COVID-related content, including humor and satire, causing internal frustration. He now believes this government pressure was "wrong" and vows to push back against similar future attempts. In a stunning political shift, Zuckerberg also announced he will not contribute money to Democratic candidates this election cycle.'

I want to finish this week's Weekly Recap with the following quote by Cory Bates:

'You can arrest the founder of Ethereum. You can arrest the leader of Cardano. You can arrest the CEO of XRP. You can arrest the CEO of X. You can arrest the CEO of Rumble. Go on and on down the line, it’s the same. But no matter how try, you can’t arrest the creator of Bitcoin.
He’s gone- walked away. This was his gift to humanity. That’s the whole point.'

Forbes:

“Networks like Bitcoin and Nostr are more needed than ever. They both give people geographic arbitrage, the ability to operate without corporate leadership, and a hedge against state repression.”

🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift: Must watch for anyone who feels anything about social media:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUsk7cqZyKU

Great talk, history context is spot on!

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.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

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See y'all next week!

Felipe - Bitcoin Friday