Texas shifts $10M Bitcoin reserve on-chain amid ETF exit fears

Protocol (5)

• Clark Moody's dashboard showed the Bitcoin price at $73,900, with a $1.48 trillion market cap and 4,283 pending transactions.
• The Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved Calcix LLC to list a Bitcoin perpetual contract referencing spot price.
• Developers achieved a reproducible Bitcoin Core build across Nix and Guix, enabling users to verify binaries against source code for security.
• The BitShaka project is developing open-source, low-power Bitcoin miners to enable accessible home mining, supported by the OpenSats grant program.
• Marty read a large portion of the U.S. Constitution from a text embedded in a Bitcoin OP_RETURN transaction, paying approximately $115,000 in fees for the data.

Politics (5)

• A former CIA officer was found with $40 million in gold bars and $2 million in cash after serving for 17 years on false credentials.
• Texas, Minnesota, and South Carolina recently enacted age verification laws for app stores, which hosts view as a centralized digital ID trojan horse.
• A U.S. Central Command letter revealed data brokers' unregulated location data is being exploited by adversaries to target and surveil American troops.
• North Korea implemented state rice price controls at 30,000 won per kilogram, but the policy worsened shortages by driving sales to black markets.
• The hosts argue that $300 FPV drones with fiber-optic guidance are being used in asymmetric warfare, evading jamming and destroying high-value military assets.

Big Tech (1)

• A Google employee was indicted for using inside information to make over $1.2 million trading Google-related prediction markets on Polymarket.

Protocol (7)

• A pseudonymous plaintiff named 'Noah Doe' filed a suit in New York Supreme Court using lost property statute Article 7B to claim legal title to 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses holding roughly 3.8 million BTC worth $293 billion.
• Galaxy Digital analysis shows 21,923 of the claimed addresses carry the 'Potosi Nance' pattern attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, holding about 1.096 million BTC worth $84.7 billion. One address holds 79,957 Bitcoin stolen from the 2011 Mt. Gox hack.
• The plaintiff's case hinges on an unnamed expert valuing each address under $10 at the time of 'finding', using New York's fastest-track lost property title path. Galaxy traced the funding for the 2025 dusting campaign and 2026 on-chain service to a single 'bankroll' Bitcoin address.
• Fidelity Digital Assets cites Iran accepting Bitcoin for oil tolls and gold overtaking dollar assets in central bank reserves as evidence of a shift away from dollar-based systems.
• Iran announced it would accept oil shipping tolls in Bitcoin, US dollar-pegged stablecoins, and Chinese yuan in April 2026. US authorities later froze $344 million in stablecoins linked to Iran's government and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
• Sequans Communications completed its Bitcoin treasury unwind, selling over 80% of its peak holdings. The company now holds approximately 658 Bitcoin after reducing holdings from over 3,000 BTC to fund convertible debt redemption.
• Investors who bought Sequans shares at the height of its Bitcoin strategy in July 2025 are sitting on losses of more than 90%. The company's ticker SQNS rose 10% after announcing the unwind.

Politics (2)

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett reiterated the Trump administration will not allow a Central Bank Digital Currency, stating CBDCs are 'clearly off the table' and the focus is on making the US a hub for digital assets.
• Prediction market platform Calci filed a federal lawsuit against Minnesota, arguing a new state law criminalizing prediction markets violates the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, as the CFTC holds exclusive jurisdiction.

BTC Markets (1)

• Strategies perpetual preferred security STRC traded as low as $97.11 as Bitcoin slipped to $73k. The company's cash balance fell from $2.25 billion to $871 million after a $1.5 billion debt buyback, leaving about six months of coverage for its $1.7 billion annual dividend obligation.

AI & Tech (1)

• Anthropic expects to expand access to its Claude Mythos AI model 'in the coming weeks' after developing safeguards, signaling a move beyond its initial tightly restricted rollout focused on cybersecurity.

BTC Markets (1)

• David Bennett attributes Bitcoin's recent sell-off to a liquidity drain, theorizing investors need cash for the upcoming SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic IPOs, alongside heavy buying in the DRAM semiconductor ETF.

Adoption (1)

• Bitcoin fintech firm Fold secured a $150 million credit facility from Encina Lender Finance to scale its Bitcoin rewards credit card program.

Mining (1)

• Bitcoin miner Iris Energy entered a $1.6 billion deal with Dell for AI infrastructure, projecting its AI cloud contract will boost annual revenue from $3.7 billion to $4.4 billion.

AI & Tech (3)

• A multi-university study found leading AI models show a 61% positive bias toward Catholicism in conversion questions while responding negatively to Jehovah's Witnesses and atheism, with religious bias examined in only 0.2% of AI safety papers.
• Terawolf acquired a Kentucky site for a 1-gigawatt AI data center, with half the capacity targeting a late 2028 launch, as its AI compute revenue surpassed Bitcoin mining revenue for the first time in Q1.
• DeFi security executives warn the sector is unsafe as AI coding agents become superhuman at finding vulnerabilities, with over $1.1 billion lost to hacks in the past year and a $292 million exploit in April.

Politics (1)

• Former President Trump endorsed exclusive CFTC authority over prediction markets, calling state officials 'scum' and arguing the sector should thrive under federal rules to keep crypto activity in the US.

Media (3)

• Joe Martin recorded his album Alone in Valentine in Nashville over seven days on a tight schedule, finishing vocals just hours before a 3 AM departure flight.
• Martin recorded at Glen Campbell's old house with producers Cal Campbell and Cornelius Webb, aiming for a spontaneous, human-centric process free from AI.
• Martin sees vinyl sales outpacing CDs, with younger buyers preferring vinyl as a luxury art piece while older audiences stick to CDs.

AI & Tech (1)

• Martin argues AI music's perfection in pitch and rhythm creates an eerie, uncanny sound, and over-edited production loses the human soul found in older records.

Business (1)

• Martin observes younger people are absent from smaller gigs due to high costs, estimating a night out can exceed £100, and sees this as a fiat-driven centralization problem killing grassroots venues.

Culture (3)

• Martin and host Avi argue cookie-cutter culture in music, food, and architecture stems from fiat economics allowing chains with cheap debt to swallow independent entities.
• Martin believes Value for Value micropayments could break gatekeepers by letting fans directly fund creators, but adoption is slow due to difficult onboarding and small audiences.
• Joe Martin will perform at V4V events in Prague on June 11th and in Belgrade at Revolution Rocks on June 19th, alongside artists like Longhi and Man Like Quex.

Protocol (2)

• Martin notes Nostr is currently quiet and growth is tepid, citing a catch-22 where artists need audiences but audiences aren't there, and legacy platforms must worsen for migration to happen.
• Martin suggests conference organizers should add evening music events to attract new cohorts, using existing spaces and encouraging sat tips, but acknowledges it's a marginal business risk.