Bitcoin News Roundup: October 18th, 2023
Listen to this episode of THE Bitcoin Podcast on Fountain or watch on YouTube, X/Twitter, or Rumble.
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Greetings and salutations my fellow plebs. My name is Walker and this is THE Bitcoin Podcast.
It’s Wednesday, October 18th, 2023. The Bitcoin block height is 812,800 and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.
Today’s episode is the Bitcoin News Roundup. I’m going to go over the big stories, run through a few rapid fire news, then zoom out and give you some perspective…
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Without further ado, let’s get into the Bitcoin News Roundup.
Geriatric War Hawks
In a recent interview with Sky News, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was asked about America’s ability to afford to support wars on two fronts, with Russia and Ukraine on the one hand, and Israel and Hamas on the other. Here’s what she said:
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This is a strange thing to say, because we can’t even afford to support our veterans here at home… Well, actually we can afford to, we just apparently prioritize funding forever wars on foreign soil to keep the military industrial complex fat and happy instead of taking care of the men and women who actually serve our country.
Also this week, our Octogenarian-in-Chief, Joseph Robinette Biden, made a statement on 60 minutes that would honestly seem like a deepfake if the President hadn’t posted it on X himself…
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I don’t know about you, but I’m getting some serious late-stage Roman Empire vibes from Biden…
Moreover, this statement clearly shows Biden’s dementia is in full force, because he seems to have forgotten how our involvement in and withdrawal from Afghanistan turned out… i.e. with $83 BILLION spent and around $7 billion worth of weapons and military equipment left in the hands of the Taliban.
We’ve already sent roughly $76.8 BILLION to Ukraine, and I’m sure many more billions will start flowing to the Middle East again shortly…
Meanwhile, U.S. public debt is $33.5 TRILLION and counting, debt-to-GDP is at 120%, and the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar has never been lower.
But fear not! Because according to Paul Krugman, the fight against inflation is over – MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! As long as you don’t count unimportant things like food, energy, housing, or used cars…
So, what can you do to protect yourself from these geriatric war hawks, central bankers, and fiat economist shills? Study Bitcoin. Save in Bitcoin. Teach other people about Bitcoin. Vote with your money and opt out of their system.
BREAKING BITCOIN ETF NEWS
If you thought this section was actually going to give you some breaking Bitcoin ETF news, I’m sorry to disappoint. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of hearing about the Bitcoin ETF, about the delays, about the new filings… There’s so much engagement click bait out there and very little actual substance. We even saw Cointelegraph share fake news about a Bitcoin ETF approval, and many people jumped on the bandwagon sharing the fake story.
Yes, bags will be pumped when the ETF is approved. And yes, it is a matter of when and not if. Yes, everyone will continue engagement farming with speculation about the ETF. Yes, it will continue to be annoying and there will be more fake news.
So instead of running through the same shit you’ve read on repeat on X, I’ll share with you a quote from my recent Bitcoin Talk with BTC Sessions:
“If top-down was all that mattered, top-down would have already given us Bitcoin. We NEEDED ground-up for Bitcoin to even have a chance at existing… It’s the bottom-up that changes the world.”
Thank you to BTC Sessions for putting things in perspective, and reminding us that the bottom-up adoption is why we’re all here in the first place.
Rapid Fire News
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink calls Bitcoin a “flight to quality.” Technically, he said “crypto,” but as Brad Mills pointed out, he’s publicly stated on TV before that he can’t say “Bitcoin” so when he says “crypto” he means “Bitcoin” – sorry to disappoint the altcoin shills out there.
Via BTC Times: Blockstream Unveils Greenlight To Enable Scalable and Non-Custodial Lightning Network Integration
And via Blockstream: In the spirit of #Bitcoin and to encourage the growth of the non-custodial Lightning options, we are offering a free #Greenlight plan designed to empower small businesses. The plan allows developers to deploy up to 1,000 on-demand nodes.
Via BTC Times: THNDR has introduced Clinch, an API aimed at facilitating instant, cross-border, low-cost, peer-to-peer betting using the Bitcoin Lightning Network, setting their sights on the $95 BILLION gambling industry.
Via Gigi on Nostr: OpenSats announces its third wave of Nostr Grants – we are happy to announce 12 new grants for open-source projects in the nostr ecosystem. Adding to the 16 grants announced in July, plus the three grants announced in August, the total number of nostr projects funded by OpenSats as of October is 31.
Via BTC Times: Madeiran President Launches Bitcoin Business Hub To Spur Innovation.
Via Documenting Bitcoin: New record Bitcoin hashrate of Four hundred forty sextillion hashes per second… nice.
Zoom Out
To wrap up today’s show, let’s zoom out.
If you’ve been following Bitcoin and global politics then you’ve certainly heard of Javier Milei, the pro-Bitcoin, anti-central bank presidential candidate in Argentina. Argentina’s presidential election is coming up fast on October 22nd.
Ahead of the election, Argentina’s Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, who is also running for president and lagging behind Milei in the polls, confirmed that Argentina will completely eliminate income tax.
Now, while this might sound great at first glance–I mean, who likes paying taxes, right?–a discerning individual will quickly realize exactly what this means: this is the government blatantly admitting that they do not need to “tax” your income, because they can just print money out of thin air.
Unfortunately, financing government spending with the money printer instead of through taxation and a balanced budget has consequences…
And in Argentina, those money printers are sure working overtime… The September inflation came in at almost 140% year-over-year…
This is a great example of something that we Bitcoiners talk about all the time: inflation is a silent tax.
Even worse, it’s a tax whose rate can be arbitrarily changed at the drop of a hat, and when people start to complain about prices increasing everywhere, the government can conveniently blame greedy corporations or certain people “not paying their fair share” or Putin or literally anything else, but what they will never do is admit that inflating the money supply is the root of the problem.
Worse still, inflation is a silent tax that hurts the poor and middle class the most, while benefiting the already rich who are in closest proximity to the creation of new money.
It’s as simple as this: when the government and central bank increase the quantity of money from nothing, the purchasing power of the money you hold decreases. If you’re new to the Bitcoin space and this sounds confusing to you, fear not; I’ve done several episodes and reads covering inflation.
To paraphrase Jeff Booth: abundance in money creates scarcity everywhere else, scarcity in money creates abundance everywhere else.
Here’s the point: politicians, in Argentina, the USA, Canada, Europe and everywhere in the world, will do anything in their power to stay in power.
They’ll make changes that they claim are good for you, say they’re lending you a helping hand–unlike the other guy who’s just some cooky libertarian conspiracy nut–and ultimately they sacrifice future prosperity for a politically convenient short-term “solution” that is not a solution at all, but rather the cause of more problems.
Jimmy Song summed up the situation in Argentina well:
So Argentina has abolished the income tax ahead of its presidential election in a last-ditch attempt to defeat the libertarian candidate who's leading in the polls. This proves:
1. They're printing money, they really don't need to tax you explicitly.
2. That inflation itself is a stealth tax that can be imposed without any legislation or transparency.
The mechanics of money are going to become way more obvious to people going forward.
So, my fellow plebs, I hope you’re awake.
I hope you’re paying attention.
I hope you’re ready and willing to call out the monetary idiocracy becoming ever more prevalent in our societies and our politics.
As more and more people wake up to the realization that our money is broken, they’re going to look for answers. And for those of us who already understand that Bitcoin is the answer, we need to keep educating, informing, and helping those who are blind to see the power of sound money.
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And that’s a wrap on this week’s Bitcoin News Roundup.
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Until next time, stay free.