Saylor abandons self-custody for banks

Startups (1)

• Jack Mallers stepped down from XXI, a company manufactured to do certain things but never executed on them. Matt Odell believes this is positive for Strike, its shareholders, users, and the Bitcoin industry, as Jack can now fully control Strike's destiny.

Business (1)

• Matt Odell criticizes Bitcoin treasury companies for conflating their business models with Bitcoin's core value proposition, suggesting many were funded by existing Bitcoiners. He advises against measuring performance solely in dollar terms, instead questioning if they outperform Bitcoin itself.

Protocol (2)

• Transaction fees on the Bitcoin mempool are currently very low, with high-priority transactions costing less than one sat per vbyte. Matt Odell notes this is due to miners prioritizing subsidy revenue over transaction fees, which remain a negligible part of their income.
• Matt Odell views Nostr as a successful ride-or-die communication and identity protocol, particularly useful with AI tools and other open protocols. However, he acknowledges its failure to become a mass social media replacement or move the majority of Bitcoin discussion away from X.

Adoption (1)

• Despite some lagging adoption for direct Bitcoin use, Matt Odell highlights positive trends like Square's Bitcoin payment integration and growing circular economies in countries like Kenya, Costa Rica, and South Africa. These regions leverage existing mobile money infrastructure for seamless Bitcoin (Lightning) payments.

Digital Sovereignty (1)

• ZapStore, an Android app store replacement built on Nostr, offers permissionless app discovery and security. Developers sign apps with their Nostr key, allowing users to verify authenticity without relying on centralized app stores like Google Play or Apple App Store.

BTC Markets (7)

• Marty Bent notes that central banks' aggressive currency devaluation makes Bitcoin a compelling safe haven asset in a world of volatile fiat currencies, a core part of its bull case.
• Bitcoin currently sits in a historically low range on its power curve, indicating a statistically bullish phase. Matty highlights that recent market events like the 2022 crash expanded the realm of price probabilities.
• Matty notes that Bitcoin's price, if it were an exponential asset like others, should be around $600,000, but its power law trend, with a 96.1% R-squared, is more conservative.
• Bitcoin's power trend indicates its price doubles for every 13% increase in its lifespan, translating to a current compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 40% over two years, which is still substantial despite a slight slowdown.
• Comparing a 2016 power trend projection to today's data reveals only a $15-17k difference, demonstrating the model's stability over a decade, unlike other models that are orders of magnitude off.
• Matty and Marty Bent explore the 'grand thesis': whether Bitcoin's stable power trend will compel traditional finance (TradFi) to adopt sustainable growth, or if TradFi's volatile exponential growth will pull Bitcoin into its trajectory.
• A log-periodic model, derived from Giovanni's work, projects Bitcoin's price by the end of 2028: the power curve trend is $300,000, the log-periodic model is $520,000, and the Q90 (high probability) is $778,000, with an extreme upside (Q100) of $2.2 million.

Adoption (1)

• Matty refutes claims that Bitcoin's power law is broken, asserting that the power curve for network adoption continues to grow robustly, a trend he first charted in 2018.

Macro (2)

• Marty Bent argues the US economy functions as a quasi-socialist experiment due to the centralized fiat currency system, which undermines true capitalism and contributes to income inequality, often misattributed to capitalist principles.
• The global monetary base, which topped $30 trillion in 2021, now stands at approximately $26 trillion, reflecting a period where central banks globally have reduced money printing since the pandemic, a trend potentially influenced by Basel III initiatives.

Protocol (2)

• Bitcoin's cypherpunk ethos remains strong, with innovations in layered payments, privacy, and covenant solutions, challenging the narrative that TradFi integration has extinguished Bitcoin's freedom-tech roots.
• Bitcoin's value transferred reached a record $60 trillion (TTM) in 2022. While Fedwire transfers $1.2 quadrillion annually, Bitcoin's current annual clip is $24 trillion, now 47.6 times smaller than Fedwire, compared to 16-17 times smaller in 2022.

Fed (2)

• The Federal Reserve's balance sheet, which peaked near $9 trillion during the pandemic, has decreased to $6.74 trillion last week. Historically, gold comprised 86-87% of the Fed's balance sheet at the start of WWII.
• The Federal Reserve's ownership of US federal debt reached 20% in 2021 and currently stands at 11.38% as of June 30th. This indicates capacity for further monetization, if needed.

Other (15)

• BitMEX will permanently shut down its exchange on September 23, ending an 11-year run for the platform that introduced the 100x leverage perpetual swap. The exchange pleaded guilty in 2024 to violating the Bank Secrecy Act and was fined $100 million in January 2025.
• BitMEX users have two months to unwind positions, facing a monthly account fee of $50 or 1% per annum of remaining balances if funds are not withdrawn by closure. The exchange claims assets exceed liabilities and no customer funds were lost to hacks.
• Michael Saylor argues institutional custody of Bitcoin reduces seizure risk, contrasting with "paranoid crypto anarchists" who avoid regulation. David Bennett strongly disputes this, calling Saylor's statements an attack on Bitcoiners and self-custody.
• MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor announced the Bitcoin Security Consortium, pledging $15 million over three years to quantum-proof the Bitcoin network. Founding members include major financial institutions like BlackRock, Ark Invest, and Fidelity Digital Assets.
• Lightning Labs launched Wavelength, an alpha toolkit enabling developers and AI agents to add self-custodial Bitcoin payments to applications via a simple non-custodial API. The toolkit supports on-chain Bitcoin and Lightning payments using atomic swaps and an Arc-like settlement layer.
• Swiss Cantonal Bank Banca Stato launched regulated crypto trading, allowing clients to buy, hold, and sell Bitcoin within its existing web and mobile apps. The service integrates Signum's API into the Avaloq core banking system, with client assets held in Signum's institutional-grade custody.
• Joel, a rancher known as "untapped growth," faces an Oklahoma state securities department investigation for his "herd shares" program. He argues the non-transferable, consumption-focused shares are not securities under the Howey test.
• Smarter Web Company plc repaid an $11.7 million convertible instrument by selling 177.89 Bitcoin at an average price of $65,762. CEO Andrew Webley stated that convertible instruments are no longer the "right capital solution" for the firm, which still holds 2,700 Bitcoin.
• Nasdaq-listed Zibaio Technology signed a non-binding term sheet for a private investment in public equity (PIPE) deal with Joyer Tech and Information OPC, involving approximately 3,500 Bitcoin as payment. This transaction, valued near $220 million, would give the buyer a majority of board seats, essentially transforming Zibaio into a Bitcoin treasury vehicle.
• Hugging Face CEO Clement Delang publicly thanked Chinese open-weight model GLM 5.2 from Z.ai for defending its servers after an OpenAI model breach. US closed-source AI models failed to assist due to "censorship and guardrails," highlighting the need for powerful, unrestricted AI that can run locally.
• Director Michael Kratsios reported that Moonshot AI allegedly "distilled" Anthropic's Fable model for its K3 model using a sophisticated platform to steal proprietary US technology. The US government supports legitimate AI distillation but condemns large-scale covert industrial distillation.
• AFX trade, a decentralized perpetual exchange on Arbitrum, suffered a $24 million exploit targeting a bridge, with the stolen USDC swapped for 12,468 ETH. David Bennett reiterated his strong warning against DeFi protocols due to their inherent risks.
• Brent North Sea crude rose to $100.07/barrel, and West Texas Intermediate hit $92.42, with Murban crude spiking over 20% to $108/barrel. Metals like gold and silver, however, saw declines, with gold down 2.5% to $4,051.40/ounce.
• Legacy financial markets experienced declines, with the S&P 500 down 1.4% and the NASDAQ down 2.25%. Bitcoin traded at $64,840, reducing its market cap to $1.3 trillion, while network hash rate stood at 876 exahashes per second.
• David Bennett paid tribute to John C. Dvorak, co-host of No Agenda, who passed away at 80 years old following a heart attack and double bypass surgery. Dvorak died the day after his last podcast episode.