Treasury chief bars CBDC as Texas demands direct Bitcoin custody

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.

Protocol (5)

• 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.
• Europa launched a Nostr-based marketplace for VPN services where individuals run servers, paid for privately with Bitcoin via Lightning.
• 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.

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.

Open Source (1)

• Adam Curry argues podcasting's core value lies in open distribution protocols and that advertising is a secondary, cumbersome revenue model for most creators.

Media (2)

• The Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting, formed secretly by companies like Spotify and DraftKings, aims to define podcast metrics for ad budgets but excludes independent apps.
• Curry proposes cutting podcast app developers into ad revenue streams as the only viable solution to provide advertisers with first-party listener data.

AI & Tech (1)

• Dave Jones observes that AI tools lack consistency, reproducibility, and reliable iteration, making them incapable of replacing human tasks despite boosting productivity.

Startups (1)

• Mike Dell notes Blueberry partnered with Podpage to offer landing pages to hosting customers, dropping their own development to focus on core strengths.

Enterprise (1)

• Blueberry eliminated free hosting trials to combat bot farms generating fake downloads for programmatic ad fraud.

Protocol (6)

• 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.
• 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.

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.

Corruption (1)

• The US Justice Department charged Google software engineer Michael Spagnuolo with using internal data to place $2.7 million in bets on Polymarket, allegedly profiting $1.2 million. The CFTC filed a parallel complaint.

Politics (2)

• The FBI seized 303 one-kg gold bars, ~$2M cash, and ~35 luxury watches from CIA official David Rush. He faces charges for allegedly stealing gold meant for operational expenses and falsifying his credentials for nearly two decades.
• David Bennett criticizes the CIA for failing to perform a basic background check on Rush, who allegedly lied about university degrees, naval service, and other credentials to attain a senior role with top-secret clearance.

Protocol (3)

• Cash App now supports USDC stablecoin transactions on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and Arbitrum, converting received stablecoins to dollars. Bennett notes this move contradicts Jack Dorsey's Bitcoin-maximalist stance but may be a strategic concession to demand.
• Block held 9,032 Bitcoin worth $675 million as an investment as of March 31, making it the 14th largest public corporate holder. Its stock price rose nearly 10% year-to-date while Bitcoin's price fell over 14%.
• The CFTC and Gemini jointly filed to reverse a $5 million settlement from January 2025. The CFTC admitted its original complaint was based on a non-credible whistleblower, calling Gemini a fraud victim and citing improper personnel influence.

Big Tech (1)

• Bennett speculates the CFTC's reversal may be linked to Gemini's pivot into prediction markets, a sector the CFTC is aggressively pursuing to regulate over state gaming authorities.

Banking (1)

• The Bank for International Settlements claims its Project Agora tokenization prototype demonstrated atomic settlement for cross-border payments. Bennett dismisses it as a centralized blockchain attempt by an entity historically critical of crypto.