Month: September 2024

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With the Fourth Halving in the rearview mirror, it seems a perfect time to provide some on-record analysis of Bitcoin from the perspective of Number and Time, aka Crypto-K, which is the name for a methodology my friend and I have developed over the years in pursuit of a technical analysis of synchronicity — the sense that our reality is arranged according to some as yet undefined acausal ordering principle. The K stands for Kubrick, as in Stanley Kubrick, director of 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining, whose life and mysterious works of cinematic art are powerful strange attractors for synchronicity and high strangeness. It is the Monolith around which our methodology — and seemingly everything else — was built.

Most reading this know that Bitcoin is an all-encompassing subject — a rabbit hole. Well, the same goes for Crypto-K, which in some respects is a study of everything, or how everything connects. And that everything includes Bitcoin. So you’re about to find out what happens when one rabbit hole intersects with another.

How is Bitcoin related to Crypto-K?

Both are about Time, or the problem with it. Crypto-K is about asking, “What is the meaning of Time’s Pace?” while Bitcoin is a new spin on the old saying “Time is Money”. How do we protect our MONEY from temporal entropy? On the other hand, how do we protect our TIME from monetary entropy?

All of these concerns fall under the astro-alchemical rubric of Saturn, the seventh classical planet. The planet of laws, boundaries, inheritance, burdens: “the labor of existence, the harvest of time” (Tarnas). Here’s astrologer John Hughes, writing about Saturn: “It is the planet of real worth, as apart from show and make-believe, and gives to all things their permanent and lasting qualities. Its action is slow, thorough and inevitable.” This sounds a lot like the BTC timechain: slow, thorough, and inevitable, defined by its permanence and lasting qualities. Real worth — the labor of existence, the harvest of time, or, in other words, proof of work.

Yes, Satoshi, Bitcoin is Saturnine, all right.

Saturn has a peculiar history when viewed through the lens of fringe theory. In 1980 David Talbott published a book called The Saturn Myth which posited the idea that long ago a previous solar system arrangement had Saturn as the Earth’s primary star, before some terrible calamity occurred that threw everything out of whack.

Maybe Talbott’s theory is whack, but there’s also Richard Hoagland (the “Face on Mars” guy), who has presented theories about Saturn, particularly its moon Iapetus, which he speculated might be an artificial body inhabited by extraterrestrials. It’s possible he regurgitated this from Arthur C. Clarke in the novelized version of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where in that book the climactic Monolith is found buried on Iapetus (not floating by Jupiter as in the film). But forget all that: Even the straight astronomers and scientists, for whom microbes in the dirt would be tremendously exciting, seem to think that Saturn (or rather, one of its moons) is the place to look when it comes to possible life within our solar system.

The point is that your reality tunnel doesn’t matter: Saturn tends to dominate the frame. As the seventh and slowest-moving classical planet, it came to represent the outer limits of material reality itself. As such it was the secret destination of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The story goes that the special effects team had trouble creating a realistic Saturn, so they pivoted to Jupiter instead. It’s also the secret meaning of the title of Kubrick’s follow-up, A Clockwork Orange. The traditional read on that title is negative, meaning what a human being would become if he lost the ability to choose good over evil — something organic turned false and machine-like, a clockwork orange. It’s a hypothetical state of the human being denigrated under 21st-century pharmacracy. Bitcoin flips this script: What if something which began as a meaningless Saturnine process grew into a truth-affirming juggernaut imbued with analog richness but beyond the reach of any seething sovereign?

Forget “A”. Bitcoin is the clockwork orange.

But why orange?

Bitcoin became the “orange coin” when the logo was finalized by anonymous BTC-talk user “bitboy” on 11/1/10, or the day after the second anniversary of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper. He had taken Satoshi’s original idea and cleaned it up, added a 14% twist, and decided to make the whole thing orange. Everyone agreed it was a perfect choice and it has remained in place ever since. The perfect choice of logo met with a perfect release date too, because that date can be reduced to 11110, as in the 1963 executive order issued by President Kennedy to issue silver certificates from the Treasury (occasionally cited by anti-Fed types as the reason JFK was assassinated). Here’s what we call a good old-fashioned sync. It’s possible that bitboy (whoever he was) released the logo on this day intentionally because he recognized the historical pun it would make, but more likely it just kind of happened that way as a grand micro-expression of that general acausal ordering principle mentioned above. It has a pointed sense of humor at times.

Satoshi Nakamoto published the white paper on 10/31/2008 — in other words on Halloween. It’s possible that bitboy had Halloween on his mind when he decided on orange for the logo and released it two years later. Satoshi’s original logo was gold, but that crystallized into orange, perhaps as a way to give Bitcoin its own identity apart from the “shiny rock”. But it was an appropriate move to make from an alchemical perspective. In an essay from The Sync Book Vol. 2 called “Moon in the Middle”, writer Mark LeClair offers a gnostic interpretation of reality (and the color orange) based on a run of 7s: the 7 tones of the diatonic scale, the 7 days of the Gregorian week, and the 7 colors of the rainbow, which all come together to communicate the essential truth of Creation: The Moon is actually the center of everything, the crucified Christ holding reality together. According to LeClair, each day of the week and color correspond to a different planet and stage of the gnostic creation myth. The story begins with the color red and Venus on Friday, then continues to Saturday and Saturn, and of course, the next color on the spectrum, orange. “The color orange is associated with deceit and mistrust, pridefulness and passive assertiveness—a tiger, brimming with orange rage, striped and softly panting, glowering, lurking in the thickness of ferns, ready to pounce and consume the soul from the inside out. The color of gold is also a function of orange, and not of yellow as is the common misconception. Gold is the achievement of royalty and godhead through the act of alchemy, which is a process of Saturn.”

As Ideal Money, true digital gold, the “orange coin” is an achievement in alchemy. The crowning achievement, perhaps, of “Cronos, the designer of Time, the Clockwork Orange… he is tough and resourceful, smart, too dangerous to dismiss as a mere force of blunt or banal evil… Feed him. Give the devil his due. Milk and cookies on the counter should do the trick.”

This imposition to feed the beast might not be unlike the way Bitcoin must be “fed” with more and more electricity to power the global “macro-chip”. Not to compare Bitcoin to the devil or anything, but Satoshi did publish the white paper on All Hallow’s Eve — and wouldn’t you know it, the BTC timechain had been cranking away for exactly 666 days on Halloween 2010, aka the day before the famous orange logo was published.

But there’s another, more spectacular way of connecting Bitcoin to 666 with the calendar. Satoshi gave the public a birth date for himself when he registered with the P2P Foundation: 4/5/1975, also known as the 42nd anniversary of FDR’s EO6102 that unilaterally confiscated U.S. citizen’s private gold holdings. In the late 1980s, there was an issue of The Economist featuring the headline, “Get ready for a world currency” backed by a “Golden Eagle” atop a pile of flaming fiat money (an image much loved by conspiracy theorists over the years). The cover date for this issue was 1/9/1988.

This means that Satoshi Nakamoto was exactly 666 weeks old on the day of The Economist’s “world currency” issue. The magazine came well before Bitcoin ever existed. Did Satoshi know this when he “chose” his birth date?

Does it seem a little threatening to you? Consider the following facts. There are 7 days in one week. This means that in 6 weeks there are 42 days. This means that in 666 weeks there are 42×111 days. Now, 666 is supposed to be a bad number right? But 42 is kind of a funny, happy number, right? So don’t think of Satoshi being 666 weeks old on the day of The Economist’s world currency issue, but instead that he was 4,242 + 420 days old! See, The Book of Revelation designates 666 as the “number of the Beast”. But notice how something as ordinary as the clockface secretly communicates it right in front of you all the time: three overlapping hands — 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 (6) hours. The number of the Beast is the number of the Clock. 666 is the Fourth Seal of Crypto-K. The Beast is time, ruled by Saturn. Nothing to be afraid of, though, especially now that we have Bitcoin.

In pursuit of the analysis of synchronicity, we employ what we call the parent-thesis, a dialectical configuration where two points in time (“parents”) generate a third (the “child”) via the exact midpoint between them. Whether it be the midpoint of a person’s life’s or the midpoint between two deaths or two movie releases, it creates a static synchronicity that can be studied and, perhaps, classified. In the case of the birth of Satoshi Nakamoto and the cover date of The Economist world currency issue, the two dates 666 weeks apart generate a midpoint 333 weeks either way of 8/22/1981 — and this happens to be the day that NASA’s Voyager 2 probe made its approach to Iapetus, kicking off its encounter with Saturn. This fly-by first clued astronomers into the existence of the equatorial ridge on Iapetus, which now ranks as the third tallest mountain structure in the entire solar system.

In keeping with the theme, 8/22/1981 also saw the release of a horror B movie called Evilspeak in which Ron Howard’s brother Clint Howard plays a nerd named Stanley Coopersmith (= 237, standard gematria), who stumbles onto the laboratory of a sixteenth-century warlock in the basement of his military academy, then uses his computer skills to summon the Devil in order to enact revenge on the kids who bully him. The opening scene has the bullies calling him “Stanley Cooperdick”, making the Stanley Kubrick comparisons even more obvious. Here we have a Stanley using computer technology to interface with Satan (a kind of artificial intelligence), and commandeering it to do his bidding — in a film released on the day Voyager 2 begins its encounter with Saturn and photographs the moon Iapetus (we’re told) — and on the mid-point of the 666 weeks between Satoshi’s birthday and The Economist’s “get ready for a world currency” issue. As the “clockwork orange”, Bitcoin could be seen metaphorically as a new form of artificial life, a new element “conjured” with computers — a decentralized phoenix rising from the ashes of centralization: Satoshi Nakamoto.

It’s in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that a powerful artificial intelligence in the future is built to answer the question of “life, the universe, and everything”, and comes back after millions of years of processing with the answer 42 — which we call the First Seal of Crypto-K. Satoshi loved 42 and originally wanted the total supply of Bitcoin to be 42 million, but cut it to 21 for economic reasons — then there’s the halving every 210,000 blocks (that’s two halvings per 420,000 blocks). Whether he meant to or not, Satoshi first announced his creation to the P2P Foundation forum on the 42nd day of 2009.

Then there’s also the difficulty adjustment — which some say is Satoshi’s stroke of genius — every 2,016 blocks. Satoshi could have made the adjustment every 2,100 blocks, mirroring the supply cap and halving schedule. Instead, he chose 2,016, a number that was 42 + 42 less than 2,100. There is a mundane explanation for this and then there are several more exciting explanations for this. Was it because 2016 is 6102 — the number of FDR’s gold confiscation order, issued 42 years before Satoshi’s birthday — backward? It could have been because 2016 reduces to 216 which is 6 x 6 x 6 and kabbalistically significant. Or it might simply have been because this made for a difficulty adjustment every 14 days instead of every 14.58333 days. It’s all of the above: Satoshi was carefully synchronizing his creation with the clock and the calendar, i.e., with the movement of the heavens. Thus it naturally fell into the prescribed order of time’s pace, which it is the purview of Crypto-K to analyze and unwind.

Of course, there’s always another sync, and always another opportunity to misinterpret the sync as evidence of conspiracy. Because events occurred in the year 2016 that are indelibly stitched into the timechain of history and retroactively make Satoshi’s choice somewhat conspicuous. Chiefly, it’s 11/9/2016, the election of Donald Trump — the orange man — for U.S. President. But on the inverse date, 9/11/2016, Hillary Clinton appeared to collapse and was tossed like a side of beef into a van that then sped away. It was interpreted by some at the time to have been the effects wrought by 4chan autists and meme-pirates unintentionally invoking an ancient Egyptian frog deity called “Kek”. This then sparked an influential online movement with a food-related name we won’t even mention that subsequently morphed into (or was co-opted by) the Q operation that officially began a year later. Did Satoshi have foreknowledge of the year in which The Plan™ was to begin and encode it into Bitcoin? Probably not, but it was encoded there nonetheless.

Another more salient example of “2016” encoding has to do with the late JFK Jr., who died in a plane crash with his wife on 7/16/1999 — the day on which Stanley Kubrick’s posthumous film Eyes Wide Shut was contractually obligated to be released. JFK Jr.’s death figures heavily into the lore of some Q-adjacent conspiracy merchants, who have lately deployed the narrative that, with his friend Donald Trump’s help, JFK Jr. actually faked his death in 1999 and is set to return when the time is right. Oh boy, where have we ever heard that one before? But that’s not to say there isn’t legit weirdness there, because here’s my point: John-John was born on 11/25/1960 and died on 7/16/1999, which means that his entire life lasted for exactly 2,016 weeks.

If you make John-John’s 2,016-week lifespan a parent-thesis and divide it to find the midpoint, exactly 1,008 weeks into his life was 3/21/1980, the day the TV show Dallas aired its season 3 finale, “A House Divided”, which featured the cliff-hanger death by gunshot of the show’s star J.R. Ewing — one of the most iconic moments in TV history. “Who shot JR on Dallas?” became the question on TV in 1980 in the way that “Who shot JFK in Dallas?” became the question of 1963 — and JFK Jr.’s death occurred such that this episode — a cheeky re-enactment of the Father’s death — aired on the midpoint of the life of the Son.

*If* JFK Jr. faked his death, he apparently did so in such a way that his official fake lifespan silently communicated the future year in which his friend would be elected president, and also pointed to a TV episode referencing his Father’s death. Why the hell would anyone do that, though? Forget the clickbait conspiracy slop. JFK Jr. is dead as a doornail, and more and more it feels like nobody is choosing to do any of this stuff consciously. Again, we are looking at the acausal ordering principle that Carl Gustav Jung discussed in his book Synchronicity — or something along the lines of VALIS, put forth by Philip K. Dick in the wake of his revelatory experiences/temporal lobe seizure which he codenamed 2-3-74. Apparently, different people and events are or can be products of the same underlying operating principle, i.e., VALIS, the salvific entity that is here transforming our world and using us as its implements in doing so.

Orange man, meet orange coin. Is it a match made in heaven? Not so far, though recently the man has softened his tune on the coin after basically denouncing it during his presidency. Here’s what you didn’t know: The orange man’s presidency was inaugurated on 1/20/2017, which was exactly 420 weeks after the orange coin was inaugurated in the Genesis block on 1/3/2009. It would seem that there might be something deeper connecting these two than just the color — after all, Trump isn’t really orange just like Bitcoin isn’t really orange either. In both cases, it’s the brand. Trump’s critics (and his fans) have often remarked how he could shoot someone in broad daylight and get away with it — a hyperbole to emphasize how he resists or repels criticism. In other words, he can survive anything, and can usually spin any negative energy sent his way into a positive outcome. It’s not unlike the way Bitcoiners often say that “everything is good for Bitcoin”. It’s that everlasting Saturnine quality behind both phenomena — or maybe it is just something about the color orange.

If you count the weeks instead from the Bitcoin white paper to Trump’s inauguration it’s 429, which is 666 – 237. This means that 237 weeks before the white paper was 666 weeks before the Trump inauguration, and likewise 666 weeks after the white paper was 237 weeks after Trump’s inauguration. Did Satoshi plan that? Perhaps he did, or perhaps that is only a side-effect of some deeper process unplanned by anyone, what you might call a decentralized signal hidden in the noise.

There are more calendar connections between orange man and orange coin. For instance, Satoshi’s “birthday” on 4/5/1975 was the day after 4/4/1975, when Donald Trump became 1,503 weeks old on the same day Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded their company Microsoft. 153 is the Second Seal of Crypto-K, and one of the most important and mysterious numbers in existence all on its own. Coincidentally or not, this particular span of time — 1,503 weeks — lines up closely with what’s known to astrologers as the Saturn Return, when the planet makes a full orbit and returns to where it was in the sky at birth. This will often coincide with a person’s coming into adulthood in one form or another (a phenomenon known to most people as turning 30). During this period of his life, Donald Trump was embroiled with his father in a lawsuit for civil rights violations.

Actor Heath Ledger who died on 1/22/2008, was born four years after Microsoft (on 4/4/1979), which means he was exactly 1,503 weeks old when he died.

For Trump it was the full legal weight of Uncle Sam that came down on his head — in Ledger’s case, Saturn came home to roost in the form of death by an accidental overdose (or so we are told). According to NASA the actual length of Saturn’s orbit in days is 10,756. The day on which Heath Ledger would have been 10,756 days old was 9/14/2008, aka the 237th day after he died! Let it be known then that this timespan we’re highlighting — 1,503 weeks — is actually 237 days shy of a full orbit of Saturn! 237 is the Third Seal of Crypto-K, spotlighted by Stanley Kubrick in The Shining and, together with 153, they solder the orange man’s Saturn Return to the birth of orange coin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

So Satoshi Nakamoto was “born” the day after Donald Trump turned 1,503 weeks old (the same day Microsoft was “born”), 42 years after EO6102 — and the Bitcoin Genesis block was mined 420 weeks before Trump took the oath of office.

Then Satoshi registered the website for his incoming digital ledger on 8/18/2008, exactly 210 days after the death of Heath Ledger. This was precisely 1,053 weeks after Donald Trump turned 42.

Donald Trump’s first Monday in office as President — 1/23/2017 — was also what we call his K-Day, or the same age Stanley Kubrick was when he died. The Bitcoin white paper was published 3,006 or 1,503 + 1,503 days before Trump’s K-Day. What makes this truly remarkable is the midpoint: 12/12/2012, the day that someone using the name Nicholas von Saberhagen published the white paper for what would eventually become the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero. Some have speculated that there might be a connection between Satoshi and Saberhagen (SN/NS). This information was reported by “MoneroOutreach” in what appears to have been an April Fool’s joke on 4/1/2020. A fact is that Satoshi made his final forum post on 12/12/2010, meaning Saberhagen published the CryptoNote white paper on a two-year “delta” with Satoshi’s final message, not unlike how the orange logo was published only hours after the two-year “delta” of the Satoshi white paper.

Anyone who has read Infinite Jest knows that April Fool’s day can carry serious undertones (especially in spycraft). It would be a mistake to discount this report as totally worthless. The tone seems off somehow, like it’s a joke being told by someone who knows it’s not a joke, but needs it to seem like it is, while also communicating (with no hands) the underlying truth — that Satoshi and Saberhagen were one and the same.

This deliberately paced article mentions three specific dates — two we already know from the first paragraph, and then in the fourth paragraph, “August 13, 2010”, the day of a forum post by Satoshi first referencing the privacy tech that would eventually be implemented into Monero. The magic of this day becomes apparent when you check it against the BTC Genesis block — 42 + 42 weeks apart, meaning it’s also in a 42-week line-up with the Trump inauguration 336 weeks ahead (aka 77 months, 7 days!), which is a remarkable parallel with Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment every 336 hours. In other words Satoshi’s first mention of ring signatures came 420 – 42 – 42 weeks before the Trump inauguration, similar to the difficulty adjustment every 2,100 – 42 – 42 blocks.

The report from MoneroOutreach on 4/1/2020 was published exactly 20 days, 3 months, and 7 years after the Saberhagen white paper — but further fuel for the conspiratorial fire is that it was also day 1,776 after the death of legendary mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. and his wife Alicia in a car crash on the New Jersey turnpike on 5/23/2015. John Nash — who you might remember as being played by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind — remains one of the more intriguing under-the-radar candidates for the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto due to his singular genius in all the requisite fields. Forgetting the Oscar-winning cartoon for a moment, the real John Nash was a visionary-grade cryptologist, mathematician, and game theorist who harbored a lifelong interest in applied economics (not to mention programming and the internet). Late in his life (in the early 2000s) he lectured and wrote on the subject of Ideal Money, and was publicly concerned with countering the mounting effects of decades of inflationary Keynesian monetary policy. We can theoretically surmise that the people in charge of implementing Nash’s ideas from above wouldn’t have been too keen on the concept of ideal money (Bitcoin). In order for it to work it would anyway have had to be released “in a roundabout way” (as Hayek suggested). So was born Satoshi Nakamoto, an alter-ego for a man already haunted by voices — and so went he, out of the window of his taxi, once his managers finally realized what he had done. That’s if you buy the theory, at least.

It’s highly speculative conjecture backed mostly by synchronistic evidence, but hear it out anyway. In Clint Howard’s brother Ron Howard’s 2001 film A Beautiful Mind, John Nash was played by Russell Crowe, while his wife Alicia (in real life an honored native citizen of El Salvador, funnily enough) was played by Jennifer Connelly. In the film we see Connelly/Alicia as a devoted wife standing by her husband as he wrestles with his “demons” while carrying out work he believes he has been singled out to perform by a ‘higher authority’. That film released in December 2001 — but 13 years later the acausal ordering principle struck once more when Crowe and Connelly were cast as husband and wife again, this time in Darren Aronofsky’s 2014 Biblical epic Noah, where we again see Connelly as a devoted wife who stands by her whacko husband as he wrestles with his demons and carries out work he believes he has been singled out to perform by a higher authority. Noah and Nash are a lot alike, are they not?

What work was that again? Oh yes, building the Ark, an engineering project from God to allow humanity and the animals to endure the incoming deluge. Any Bitcoiner worth their salt has already understood the parallel. The orange coin has been referred to as a financial Noah’s Ark on more than one occasion, seemingly engineered (by God, of course) to help humanity stave off an inflationary financial apocalypse, and Nash has emerged (independently) as one candidate for the anonymous builder of that financial Ark. It’s a theory bolstered synchronistically by how the same actors that played Nash and his wife in a Hollywood film, later played Noah and his wife in a Hollywood film about building the Biblical Ark! Again the dichotomy presents itself: Does this represent intentional encoding of media by Hollywood filmmakers and producers, or is it an example of Jung’s acausal ordering principle, where humans can’t help but make certain decisions, telling on ourselves over and over? Good luck getting a consensus on that question.

So, again, the 4/1/2020 report on the Satoshi/Saberhagen matter was published 1,776 days after John Nash and his wife died on 5/23/2015. If there’s anything to compare this to it’s that likewise, Queen Elizabeth’s death on 9/8/2022 arrived 1,776 days after the inaugural Q drop. 1776 was spotlighted by the founding of the USA that year and is the Fifth Seal of Crypto-K, so these are syncs, to be sure, but it’s possible — if however infinitesimally — that all of these items are related on a material level. John Nash remains one of the most convincing candidates for the mantle of Satoshi (even without the Hollywood casting magic) and this April Fool’s dispatch was suspiciously well-timed against his death, which, at this point, might as well be deemed an assassination. It feels like the universe has a secret to tell us, and is using us as its implements to do so.

There’s another temporal tell tying Nash’s possible assassination on 5/23/2015 to Bitcoin: It happened exactly 333 weeks after the Genesis block. In other words, Nash died when the Bitcoin timechain was half of 666 weeks old. If Nash was assassinated for his secret work on Bitcoin, the people who did it would probably go about timing it perfectly according to their secret midnight rituals, and this might be evidence of that — they love their 3s. Or it could be evidence of something else.

Nash died 333 weeks after the Genesis block — so we ask what happened 333 weeks before the Genesis block, or 666 weeks before Nash died? That day is 8/17/2002, a Saturday. The synchronicity that must be remarked on here is how that weekend (Friday, or the beginning of that week, as Mark LeClair would have us believe) a movie was released starring Eddie Murphy called The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Taking place on the Moon in the year 2087, Murphy plays Pluto Nash, an ex-con trying to run a successful lunar nightclub all while evading the lunar mafia. Despite the decent cast, the film was a horrendous bomb, but the universe often uses bombs like these to conceal its deeper truths. Pluto represents Hades, or death itself, so the combination of Pluto and Nash in the title character of a film (in which Nash is being hunted by the “Mafia” who wish to kill him) released 666 weeks before the car crash that killed John Nash and his wife — with the BTC Genesis block at the midpoint. It more than bears mentioning. It’s downright freaky.

Another detail about John Nash that adheres to the architecture of Crypto-K is that he was born in the same year as Stanley Kubrick — 1928. In fact, Nash’s birthday 6/13/1928 and Kubrick’s birthday 7/26/1928 together bracket a span of only 42 days. The Shining received wide release on 6/13/1980, but it premiered three weeks earlier on 5/23/1980, which means that The Shining released on John Nash’s 52nd birthday, while Nash and his wife were car-crashed 35 years after The Shining premiered — 35 years being exactly 420 months, and 52 years being 666 – 42 months. In other words, when a person turns 52, they are one “reign of the Beast” (Rev 13:5) away from 666 months old.

The exact midpoint of John Nash’s life hit on 12/3/71. See it? The 237? Since we’re comparing Nash to Kubrick, we can provide the ready-made knowledge that Kubrick’s life midpoint arrived on 11/15/1963 — one week before the JFK assassination.

Do you want to guess how much time passed from Stanley Kubrick’s midpoint to John Nash’s midpoint?

Exactly 420 weeks. The same length of time as from the Genesis block to the inauguration of Donald Trump! What’s more, the day of Nash’s midpoint — 12/3/71 — was the same day the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki premiered his De Natura Sonoris No. 2, music which would later be incorporated by Stanley Kubrick into The Shining! Could this get any more convoluted? Of course, it’s that symmetry thing again, drawing what we call a parent-thesis: Nash’s midpoint arrived 420 weeks after Kubrick’s midpoint, so what happened 420 weeks before Kubrick’s midpoint? You’ll never guess, so it’s 10/28/1955, the birthday of Bill Gates, who has already been mentioned in connection with the founding of Microsoft the day before Satoshi Nakamoto’s “birthday!” Small world, hey?

In A Beautiful Mind, Jennifer Connelly plays a beleaguered wife who, in trying to protect her child, stumbles onto her crazy husband’s papers which prove that he’s schizophrenic. That’s a virtual mirror to The Shining where Shelley Duvall plays a beleaguered wife who, in trying to protect her child, stumbles onto her husband’s private papers which prove that he’s insane. According to Mark LeClair again, Jack Torrance represents Saturn, the demiurge, the “master of time”, an archetype Kubrick also applied to himself via the backstage documentary shot by his daughter Vivian Kubrick, where we see them dressing alike, dramatically typing away at a typewriter, and even hassling “Wendy” — aka Shelley Duvall. Kubrick wanted us to see him squarely equating himself with the character of Jack Torrance — i.e., Saturn. So it would seem that in the year 2001 the character of John Nash in A Beautiful Mind also was overlapped by the same Saturnine trope as Jack and Kubrick in The Shining — and then it happened again with Noah in Noah! It’s almost like the universe (or VALIS) was trying to tell us something, and this is how it speaks.

Nash’s birth brackets 42 days with Kubrick’s birth, and the midpoint of Nash’s life on 12/3/71 came 420 weeks after Kubrick’s life’s midpoint.

So what about the end of their lives?

If you go look it up, you’ll find that Nash died 846 weeks after Kubrick, a figure which amounts to 420 + 420 weeks, plus 42 days.

Who exactly is doing all this, and why?

One person who was verifiably involved in the beginnings of Bitcoin was of course Hal Finney, who was right there to help Satoshi along when the first BTC client launched on 1/9/09, and he was there to receive the first BTC transaction from Satoshi in block 170 on 1/11/09 — which, by the way, occurred exactly 153 + 153 + 153 weeks before the first post from another anonymous internet entity, Q (the 17th letter), on 10/28/2017.

Hal Finney’s birth on 5/4/1956 means that on the day of the Bitcoin Genesis block, he was 19,237 days old. Here we have the Third Seal, 237, combined with what we call the “Ruler” — 19. One property of 19 that remains relevant is how it alphanumerically translates to AI, the abbreviation for artificial intelligence, now positioned as the existential threat of our time. Some Bitcoiners have wildly claimed that BTC represents the counterbalancing force required by nature for humanity to resist AI’s eventual total liquid control of all centralized systems, though none of them have been clear on the specifics of how that might work. But in this regard — BTC vs. AI — the name “Hal Finney” carries certain connotations, because “Hal” is the name of Kubrick’s malevolent AI in 2001: A Space Odyssey: HAL 9000. “Finney” could be read as finis, for finished, as in “HAL finished” — AI finished.

What’s in a name? In this case, perhaps the sum total of a man’s mission on earth.

It was noticed early on that Stanley Kubrick’s death on 3/7/1999 occurred 666 days before 1/1/2001. It took some time for Crypto-K to come along and ask, What happened 666 days before Kubrick died? The answer turned out to be the day that chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov lost a match to the computer Deep Blue, making it the first time that the best human had lost to an artificial intelligence in match-play chess — much the same way that Frank Poole lost to HAL in the film. Compounding the sync is that the computer Deep Blue was built by IBM, and modeled after the Monolith from 2001!

The trope continues to express itself: Man vs. Machine, in a chess match for all the marbles, with history itself the board for the Game of All Time.

Is Bitcoin someone’s idea of checkmate?

Satoshi Nakamoto appeared in digital public for the last time 15 years to the day after Kubrick died — with a message that read “I am not Dorian Nakamoto” — and then exited the stage for good, much like Flight MH370 which disappeared along with Satoshi less than 24 hours later. Satoshi’s final message on 3/7/2014 meant that the total time elapsed from his first published word to his final published word was 279 or 42 + 237 weeks. Hal Finney would find his own end later that year, succumbing to ALS on 8/28/2014, 4,200 hours after Satoshi’s final post — and John and Alicia Nash would be taken less than nine months after that.

His death on 8/28/2014 meant that Hal Finney’s life’s midpoint occurred around 7/1/1985 — a scant 42 hours before the release of Back to the Future, a movie about a plan to use time-travel technology to stop a “terrorist” attack and break a temporal curse.

We know Bitcoin is the clockwork orange, but could it also be the flux capacitor?

Maybe what you’ve read here seems to you like the ravings of a man who has not been properly medicated. But hopefully some shards of this screed will stick in your temporal lobe anyway and in a few weeks or months you’ll be compelled for one reason or another to think about it again, and say, “Huh, maybe that number freak was onto something”. We’ll see.

The Fourth Halving took effect on 4/19/2024, when the BTC timechain was exactly 19 × 42 weeks old — the Ruler (AI) meets the First Seal and the orange coin, a showdown for life, the universe, and everything.

Perhaps Satoshi planned that one ahead of time as well, but even if not, he would have loved how perfectly it all worked out.

In today’s financial world, understanding Bitcoin is no longer optional—it’s essential. As the sector grows and continues to attract attention from traditional finance, the need for high-quality, data-driven analysis has never been greater. That’s why we at Bitcoin Magazine Pro are excited to introduce The Bitcoin Report, a new monthly research digest tailored specifically for professional and institutional investors.

Why The Bitcoin Report?

Echoing Gordon Gekko’s famous line from *Wall Street* (1987), “Tell me in 30 seconds why talking with you for 5 more minutes will make me more money.” We know that investors need actionable insights fast. With Bitcoin evolving as a maturing asset class and institutions seeking reliable sources of information, The Bitcoin Report aims to be the go-to resource for navigating this dynamic market.

Each edition of The Bitcoin Report provides a clear and concise industry overview, offering deep dives into key topics that matter most to investors. We’ve designed this digest to deliver insights in a familiar and professional format, so you can quickly assess market trends and make informed decisions.

What Makes The Bitcoin Report Unique?

What truly sets The Bitcoin Report apart is the expertise and depth of knowledge behind each edition. Every month, we feature contributions from some of the most respected professionals in the Bitcoin and financial industry. The debut issue is particularly special, featuring insights from a diverse range of subject matter experts. These include CEOs, investment managers, academics, senior economists, digital asset portfolio fund managers, family offices, and directors of Bitcoin strategy.

For the inaugural edition, we are proud to have insights from thought leaders such as Richard Byworth, Pascal Hügli, Lucas Betschart, Lukas Pfeiffer, Dr. Demelza Hays, Dr. Michael Tabone, Dylan LeClair, Philip Swift, and Thomas Zeltner. Their expertise spans the full spectrum of the financial world, providing readers with invaluable perspectives on how Bitcoin fits into the broader economic landscape.

We extend our gratitude to these contributors for being part of the first issue and for sharing their unique insights with our readers.

Key Features of The Bitcoin Report:

– On-chain Analysis: Get an insider’s view of Bitcoin’s underlying network data to better understand market movements and trends.

– Bitcoin Mining Insights: A critical focus on mining activity and its influence on the Bitcoin ecosystem, shedding light on key operational developments.

– Bitcoin Stocks & Derivatives: Analysis of publicly traded companies involved in Bitcoin and their performance, as well as insights into Bitcoin derivative markets.

– Regulatory Updates: Keeping you informed of regulatory changes that could impact Bitcoin markets globally.

– Price Modeling Forecasts: Expert projections based on the latest data, helping you anticipate potential price movements.

– Macroeconomic Outlook: How global economic conditions might affect Bitcoin’s trajectory, with detailed discussions of interest rates, inflation, and other major factors.

Our Inaugural Edition: August 2024—Available Now for Free!

We are proud to offer the inaugural August edition of The Bitcoin Report for free. Unlike many other industry reports hidden behind paywalls or subscriptions, we are committed to reaching the widest possible audience. Our goal is to make The Bitcoin Report the most-read Bitcoin digest available online, offering unparalleled value to institutional and professional investors.

Download and Share the Report!

We invite you to download the August edition and see firsthand the wealth of insights included. Whether you’re managing portfolios, seeking long-term exposure to Bitcoin, or simply staying informed, this report will provide you with the key highlights from the past month’s activity.

Feel free to share the report and its content—take screenshots, post snippets on social media, and join the conversation by using the hashtag #TheBitcoinReport. Tracking these posts will help us improve future editions and ensure that our content continues to provide value to the Bitcoin community.

A Comprehensive Resource for a Diverse Audience

Although The Bitcoin Report is tailored to professional investors, we recognize that the majority of individuals and businesses still do not own Bitcoin. As part of our mission to educate and inform, we’re including high-quality, easy-to-understand content to reach a broader audience. Each report features contributions from respected Bitcoin industry professionals, sharing exclusive insights based on their areas of expertise.

A Bridge Between Traditional Finance and Bitcoin

As institutional interest in Bitcoin grows, so too does the need for insightful, digestible analysis that bridges the gap between traditional finance and the Bitcoin world. The Bitcoin Report provides exactly that—a comprehensive monthly overview that helps investors navigate the complexities of this rapidly maturing asset class. From direct Bitcoin ownership to proxy exposure via publicly listed companies, the investment landscape is broadening, and we’re here to ensure you’re well-informed every step of the way.

A Commitment to Continuous Improvement

Our team at Bitcoin Magazine Pro is dedicated to evolving The Bitcoin Report with each monthly edition. We will continually expand on our content, add expert contributors, and refine the report based on feedback from readers. Our goal is to provide you with the most valuable, timely insights available, helping you stay ahead of the curve in this fast-paced market.

Opportunities for Sponsorship and Collaboration

If your organization is interested in sponsoring future editions of The Bitcoin Report or exploring joint-publication opportunities, we’d love to hear from you. Partnering with us offers a unique chance to reach a wide, engaged audience of investors, providing valuable exposure in the rapidly growing Bitcoin space.

Please reach out to Mark Mason at mark.mason@btcmedia.org to discuss how your brand can be part of this exciting initiative.

Conclusion and Call to Action

We invite you to explore the inaugural edition of The Bitcoin Report and see how it can enhance your understanding of Bitcoin and its investment potential. Download the report today, share it with your network, and don’t forget to use #TheBitcoinReport on social media to join the conversation.

Stay tuned for future editions as we continue to provide the Bitcoin market insights you need to succeed. Follow Bitcoin Magazine Pro for ongoing research, and together, let’s navigate the future of finance.

Rollups have become the narrative focus of scaling Bitcoin lately, becoming the first thing to truly “steal the limelight” from the Lightning Network in terms of wider mindshare. Rollups aim to be an off-chain layer two that is not bound or constrained by the liquidity limitations that are central to the Lightning Network, i.e. end users required someone allocate (or “lend”) them funds ahead of time in order to be able to receive money, or intermediary routing nodes requiring channel balances that can facilitate the movement of the payment amount all the way from sender to receiver.

These systems were originally developed to function on Ethereum and other Turing complete systems, but as of late the focus has shifted to porting them to UTXO based blockchains such as Bitcoin. This article is not going to discuss the current state of things being implemented on Bitcoin currently, but going to discuss the function of an idealized rollup that people are aiming for in the long term depending on features Bitcoin currently does not support, namely the ability to verify Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) on Bitcoin directly.

The basic architecture of a roll is as follows: a single account (or in Bitcoin’s case UTXO), holds the balances of all users in the rollup. This UTXO contains a commitment in the form of a merkle root of a merkle tree that commits to all the current balances of existing accounts in the rollup. All of these accounts are authorized using public/private key pairs, so in order to propose an off-chain spend a user must still sign something with a key. This part of the structure allows users to leave without permission whenever they want, simply by crafting a transaction proving their account is part of the merkle tree, they can unilaterally exit the rollup without the operator’s permission.

The operator of the rollup must include a ZKP in transactions that update the merkle root of account balances on-chain in the process of finalizing off-chain transactions, without this ZKP the transaction will be invalid and therefore not includable in the blockchain. This proof allows people to verify that all changes to off-chain accounts were properly authorized by the account holder(s), and that the operator has not conducted a malicious update of balances to steal money from users or reallocate it to other users dishonestly.

The problem is, if only the root of the merkle tree is posted on-chain where users can view and access it, how do they get their branch in the tree in order to be capable of exiting without permission when they want to?

Proper Rollups

In a proper rollup, the information is put directly into the blockchain everytime that new off-chain transactions are confirmed and the state of the rollup accounts change. Not the entire tree, that would be absurd, but the information necessary to reconstruct the tree. In a naive implementation, the summary of all existing accounts in the rollup would have balances and accounts simply added in the transaction updating the rollup.

In more advanced implementations, a balance diff is used. This is essentially a summary of what accounts have had money added to or subtracted from them during the course of an update. This allows each rollup update to only include the changes to account balances that occur. Users can then simply scan the chain and “do the math” from the beginning of the rollup to arrive at the current state of account balances, which allows them to reconstruct the merkle tree of current balances.

This saves a lot of overhead and blockspace (and therefore money) while still allowing users to guarantee access to the information needed for them to exit unilaterally. Including this data in a formal rollup that uses the blockchain to make it available to users is mandated by the rules of the rollup, i.e. a transaction that does not include the account summary or account diff is considered an invalid transaction.

Validiums

The other way to handle the problem of data availability for users to withdraw is to put the data somewhere else besides the blockchain. This introduces subtle issues, the rollup still needs to enforce that the data was made available somewhere else. Traditionally other blockchains are used for this purpose, specifically designed to function as data availability layers for systems like rollups.

This creates the dilemma of security guarantees being as strong. When the data is posted directly to the Bitcoin blockchain, consensus rules can guarantee it is correct with absolute certainty. However when it is posted to an external system, the best it can do is verify an SPV proof that the data was posted to another system.

This entails verifying an attestation that data exists on other chains, which is ultimately an oracle problem. Bitcoin’s blockchain cannot verify anything completely except what occurs on its own blockchain, the best it can do is verify a ZKP. A ZKP however cannot verify that a block containing rollup data was actually publicly broadcast after being produced. It cannot verify that external information is actually publicly available to everyone.

This opens the door to data withholding attacks, where a commitment to the data being published is created and used to advance the rollup, but the data is not actually made available. This renders users funds beyond their ability to withdraw. The only real solution to this is to depend entirely on the value and incentive structure of systems completely external to Bitcoin.

The Rock and Hard Place

This creates a dilemma in terms of rollups. When it comes to the data availability issue, there is essentially a binary choice between posting the data to the Bitcoin blockchain or somewhere else. This choice has massive implications for both rollup security and sovereignty, as well as their scalability.

On one hand, using the Bitcoin blockchain for the data availability layer introduces a hard ceiling on how much rollups can scale. There is only so much blockspace, and that puts an upper limit on how many rollups can exist at one time and how many transactions all rollups in aggregate can process off-chain. Every rollup update requires blockspace proportional to the amount of accounts that have had balance changes since the last update. Information theory only allows data to be compressed so much, and at that point there is no more potential for scaling gains.

On the other hand, using a different layer for data availability removes the hard ceiling on scalability gains, but it also introduces new security and sovereignty issues. In a rollup using Bitcoin for data availability it is literally not possible for the state of the rollup to change without the data needed by users to withdraw being atomically posted to the blockchain. With Validiums, that guarantee depends entirely on the ability of whatever external system is being used to resist gaming and data withholding.

Any block producer on the external data availability system is now capable of holding Bitcoin rollup users’ funds hostage by producing a block and not actually broadcasting it to make the data available.

So which will it be, if we ever do get to an ideal rollup implementation on Bitcoin that actually enables unilateral user withdrawal? The rock, or the hard place? 

The Proof of Workforce Foundation (POWF) and Careers In Government Inc. (CIG) have launched a strategic partnership aimed at integrating Bitcoin into public sector employment practices, according to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine. This collaboration seeks to enhance financial security, attract talent, and foster innovation within the government workforce through Bitcoin-based compensation and benefits.

The partnership’s focus is on developing innovative strategies for including Bitcoin in salary options and incentive structures for public sector employees. By testing these strategies, the initiative aims to create a scalable model that can be adopted by government employers nationwide. This effort is in attempt to boost job satisfaction and offer financial protection for employees against inflation and other economic uncertainties.

“Integrating Bitcoin into public sector employment practices will not only attract and retain top talent but also promote financial literacy and inclusion, aligning with our mission to connect talented individuals with meaningful careers,” said Michael and Corey Hurwitz, founders of Careers In Government.

Alongside compensation integration, the collaboration will promote financial literacy among public sector workers by offering educational and professional development opportunities related to Bitcoin. Additionally, the partnership will implement tailored training programs and outreach campaigns to encourage the adoption of Bitcoin in the public sector.

“We are excited to partner with Careers In Government to advance Bitcoin adoption in the public sector. This collaboration represents a significant step forward in empowering government employers and employees to embrace the benefits of this innovative technology,” said Dom Bei, Founder of the Proof of Workforce Foundation.

This partnership extends POWF’s ongoing efforts to integrate Bitcoin into government operations. Earlier this summer, POWF made headlines by collaborating with the City of Santa Monica to establish an official Bitcoin office, a historic move that incurred no costs for the city.

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 City of Santa Monica, California, launches its website for its official Bitcoin Office 👀 pic.twitter.com/TcnoqGZws0

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 9, 2024

Monochrome Asset Management announced its Monochrome Bitcoin ETF (IBTC) will implement proof-of-reserves verification through a new partnership with Hoseki. This makes IBTC the first Australian spot Bitcoin ETF to adopt such transparency measures.

Launched earlier this year, the Monochrome Bitcoin ETF has seen steady inflows totalling 134 Bitcoin worth over AUD 11 million. The fund is now collaborating with Hoseki to provide daily proof-of-reserves for its Bitcoin holdings.

Hoseki’s advanced verification process, Hoseki Verified, will enable Monochrome to deliver independently verified evidence that investor assets are fully accounted for. This ongoing auditing sets a higher standard for transparency in Australian Bitcoin ETFs.

“Proof of reserves is important for establishing full operational transparency of a Bitcoin ETF,” said Jeff Yew, CEO at Monochrome Asset Management. “Our partnership with Hoseki highlights our commitment to setting the highest standards for integrity and reliability in Bitcoin ETFs, setting a precedent for the industry.”

According to Monochrome, the Hoseki integration also aligns with its unique capability for direct Bitcoin applications and redemptions, ensuring privacy while maintaining transparency.

As a leading Bitcoin verification provider, Hoseki will conduct real-time validation that IBTC’s Bitcoin reserves match its stated holdings. This provides clear proof of assets to investors. The initiative may prompt broader adoption of rigorous verification measures across the Bitcoin ETF landscape.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Japan’s largest electricity provider, has begun mining Bitcoin through its subsidiary Agile Energy X using excess renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted, as per reports from Asahi.

JUST IN: 🇯🇵 Japan’s largest power company TEPCO is mining #Bitcoin using surplus energy. pic.twitter.com/ZrsmbV7mv6

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) September 9, 2024

With over 27 million residential and business customers, TEPCO established Agile Energy in 2022, and now they are exploring Bitcoin mining powered by surplus renewable energy. The subsidiary has installed mining rigs next to solar farms in Japan’s Gunma and Tochigi prefectures.

The initiative helps reduce wasted green energy from solar and wind farms that are forced to curtail production to avoid overloading Japan’s grid. This energy is now being diverted to generate Bitcoin.

“Green energy producers have to operate their businesses on the assumption that part of the power they generate is wasted,” said Agile Energy President Kenji Tateiwa. “If bitcoins were to provide a new source of income for similar power producers, who are being exposed to overinvestments, that would prompt more green energy to be introduced.”

The project shows how Bitcoin mining can incentivize renewable energy growth by providing producers with additional revenue streams. Tateiwa said Bitcoin profits could encourage further investment in clean energy to power the mining.

Other countries are also tapping excess renewables for Bitcoin mining, like El Salvador, which uses its geothermal energy. This dispels the myth that Bitcoin is environmentally hazardous, as much mining uses energy that would otherwise be wasted. 

More and more companies and countries are figuring out how to turn waste and surplus energy into the hardest money on earth. As more renewables come online, Bitcoin mining will help reduce wasted power and emissions.

The speakers and performers at the second night of the America Loves Crypto tour were just as impassioned and driven to get out the crypto vote as those from the first night of the tour.

The political figures and crypto industry leaders present at this event, which took place at The Space in Las Vegas, included Sonny Vinuya, Outreach Director for Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo (R); Rudy Pimantuan, Nevada Lieutenant Governor Stavros S. Anthony’s Chief of Staff (R); Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine (D) and Kate Rouch, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Coinbase, amongst others. Rapper and singer 070 Shake and Las Vegas-based DJ 3LAU performed at the event.

The common threads in the rhetoric of the speakers and performers at the event were that crypto is here to stay, Nevada will be a home for the crypto industry and that the crypto vote matters deeply in Nevada, a swing state with a population of just over 3.1 million in which the 2024 Presidential election vote differential was only 33,516.

Ensuring Victory for Pro-Crypto Candidates in Nevada

“We need to ensure that our policymakers and the leaders we elect are those that embrace what we believe in,” Pimantuan, a crypto investor since 2015, told the audience.

“And so in this coming election cycle, especially here in Nevada, elections are going to be won or lost by 1 or 2 percentage points. That’s about 15,000 to 30,000 votes,” he added.

“When you add up how many people in our state are investors in crypto, that number is far greater than the margin of victory.”

Far greater is an understatement, as 385,000 Nevadans own crypto, according to the Stand With Crypto Alliance. This number was plastered across screens at the event for the entirety of the evening.

“In my business, we always say the market will decide,” began Conine.

“Well, guess what, folks? You’re the market, and your vote matters. Elections in this state are always very close, and they’re not close because everybody votes and both sides are even. They’re close because some people vote, but a lot of people stay home,” he added, before urging those in the audience who weren’t registered to vote to do so while stressing that the crypto vote can sway the ballot in upcoming elections at both the state and federal levels.

Rouch, a resident of Nevada, also issued a call to action from the stage.

“We need you guys this election,” she said.

“It is critically important to figure out where the politicians in your district, in the state, stand on crypto — to really ask them the hard questions — and to tell your friends and family to get out there and vote.”

Nevada as a Home to the Bitcoin and Crypto Industry

“Las Vegas is a city of opportunity — above and beyond the casino floors,” shared Vinuya from the stage.

“Nevada is home to an emerging center of technology and financial innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth,” he added before citing that the Governor’s Office of Economic Development facilitated $5 billion in economic investment last year and that the state saw 4% job growth in the same time period.

Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine addresses the audience.

Part of this trend was fueled by Nevada’s embrace of the crypto industry.

“Amidst all of these exciting achievements under the leadership of Governor Lombardo and Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, Nevada has also become a home for innovators in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency,” he explained.

Vinuya then pointed out that next year’s Bitcoin conference will be based in Las Vegas.

“Here in our state, we have a good concept coined by Governor Lombardo called ‘the Nevada way,’ which means that as Nevadans, we never give up, we never give in, and we never stop dreaming,” he concluded. “The spirit of the Nevada Way is alive and well in the Bitcoin community, and we welcome your innovation and big dreams in Nevada.”

Capitalizing on Political Momentum

According to Rouch, we’ve hit the point of no return with crypto, and politicians can no longer afford to not take a stance on the issue, which is why Coinbase supports the Stand With Crypto Alliance.

“What we’re really saying here is ‘pay attention,’” Rouch told Bitcoin Magazine. “This matters to a lot of voters.”

After citing that 52 million Americans of varied backgrounds, ethnicities and socioeconomic status now own crypto, Rouch explained that politicians, up the federal level, now see how big of an issue this is and are acting accordingly.

“We’ve seen undeniable change in Washington, DC over the last year from both parties,” she said.

“We had FIT21 pass in the House with a bipartisan vote. That was really unprecedented. We also have politicians making their statements on crypto known for the first time, and I feel very optimistic about that,” she added.

Rouch wasn’t the only speaker or performer at the event feeling optimistic.

Before beginning his DJ set, 3LAU told the story of how he met the Winklevoss twins, early bitcoin buyers and owners of the Gemini crypto exchange, at a gig a decade ago. He shared how they explained what Bitcoin was to him at that event, and that it gave him hope.

3LAU giving a thumbs up to Bitcoin and crypto voters during his DJ set.

“Bitcoin changed my life, and it’s been that way for the past 10 years,” said 3LAU to the crowd before he started his DJ set.

“This election is probably the most important in my life. We have a choice to make: the future of the financial system or follow the legacy bullshit that we’ve had to put up with,” he added.

“And we’re all going to fucking vote for crypto.”

Bitcoin and the U.S. dollar have a long-standing inverse correlation, notably when observing the Dollar Strength Index (DXY). When the dollar weakens, Bitcoin often gains strength, and this dynamic might now be setting the stage for restarting the BTC bull cycle.

DXY

The Dollar Strength Index (DXY) measures the value of the U.S. dollar against a basket of other major global currencies. Historically, a declining DXY has often coincided with significant rallies in Bitcoin’s price. Conversely, when the DXY is on the rise, Bitcoin tends to enter a bearish phase.

Figure 1: Bitcoin and DXY have historically been inversely correlated. View Live Chart 🔍

We have recently seen a significant decline in the DXY, which could be signaling a shift toward a more risk-on environment in financial markets. Typically, such a shift is favorable for assets like Bitcoin. Despite this downturn in the DXY, Bitcoin’s price has remained relatively stagnant, raising questions about whether BTC might soon experience a catch-up rally.

Figure 2: Recent downturn in DXY. View Live Chart 🔍

Sentiment Shifting

Coinciding with the decrease in demand for the U.S. dollar, the high-yield credit data suggests increasing demand for higher-yielding corporate bonds. This indicates that investors are more eager to obtain outsized returns, and historically this appetite has resulted in more significant capital inflows and higher prices as a result for Bitcoin.

Figure 3: High Yield Credit demand is increasing, indicating a shift to a more ‘risk-on’ sentiment. View Live Chart 🔍

Lagging Behind?

In comparison, the S&P 500 has seen substantial growth in recent weeks, while Bitcoin has remained relatively stagnant. However, the increasing correlation between Bitcoin and the S&P500 suggests that Bitcoin might soon follow the upward trend we’ve seen in traditional equities.

Figure 4: S&P500 has recently outperformed BTC, and given the strong correlation between S&P500 & Bitcoin there’s a chance we’ve got some catching up to do. View Live Chart 🔍

Conclusion

In summary, while Bitcoin has been slow to react to the recent decline in the DXY, the broader market conditions suggest a potential for a bullish phase in our current cycle. We’ve seen a shift in sentiment amongst traditional market investors and, subsequently, a period of outperformance for the S&P500.

Whether the market is overestimating the impact of the dollar’s decline remains to be seen, but the potential for a rally is there.

For a more in-depth look into this topic, check out a recent YouTube video here: The US Dollar Decline Will Be the BTC Bull Market Catalyst

On a 100°F evening in Phoenix, crypto enthusiasts from Arizona came out with gusto for the first night of the America Loves Crypto tour.

The tour, organized by the Stand With Crypto Alliance, a non-profit on a mission to get America’s 52 million crypto owners out to the polls in November, will roll through five swing states in the coming weeks, bringing awareness to the importance of voting for candidates who support pro-crypto policies in the upcoming US elections.

On this evening in Arizona, politicians such as Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Arizona House Speaker Pro Tempore Travis Grantham (R) spoke to the audience alongside crypto industry founders before making way for the psychedelic soul grooves of the Black Pumas.

The Mission and the Margin

“A huge priority for us is turning out the crypto vote,” Logan Dobson, Executive Director of Stand With Crypto, told Bitcoin Magazine.

“Our only cause is crypto. We’re not pushing for specific candidates. We’re not pushing for specific parties. We’re just getting the crypto vote out,” he added.

“And I can tell you that in multiple swing states already, there are more people who have signed up with Stand With Crypto than the margin of victory was in 2020.”

Dobson’s final point is particularly pronounced in Arizona, where, in the 2020 presidential election, President Biden beat former President Trump by about 10,500 votes. Stand With Crypto has signed up almost three times the amount of crypto advocates — 27,231 — than the amount of voters who accounted for Biden’s margin of victory in the previous election.

Encouragement from Politicians

Senator Sinema kicked off the event, urging audience members to fearlessly vote for candidates who support pro-crypto policies.

“You guys are a real force in Arizona and it’s important that we use this election cycle to ensure that the crypto community’s voice is heard,” said Senator Sinema.

“We’ve got to push for policies that fuel innovation so the financial system works for everyday people. We’ve got to make sure that candidates up and down the ballot — state legislatures as well as at the federal level — understand crypto and are working towards a great political climate for crypto rather than one that’s based on misinformation, fear and old-school regulations that hinder the industry,” she added.

Sinema concluded her brief speech with what seemed like a mild jab at the Democrats, the party she parted ways with in December 2022.

“Don’t be afraid to support a candidate or an elected official who takes risks,” she said.

“You all understand the value of taking risks. The crypto industry wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for risk taking,” Sinema added.

“We want to look for candidates who are reasonable but are willing to take risks and speak out against the party line rhetoric that’s trying to stop or slow the innovation of this industry.”

Following Sinema was Grantham, a proponent of the freedom with which bitcoin and crypto provides its users.

Grantham didn’t mince words from the stage. He discussed how politicians are abusing the US dollar by spending more of it than they have and printing it at will. He made the case that it’s up to Gen Z and Millennials especially to vote for pro-crypto politicians to allow for assets like bitcoin to compete against the dollar. He was even more explicit on this topic in an interview backstage with Bitcoin Magazine.

“There’s a large group of elected officials who think the government is the solution to our monetary problems, that this fiscal irresponsibility doesn’t matter and that the dollar is going to be the end-all-be-all forever — and that’s just a crazy way of thinking,” Grantham told Bitcoin Magazine.

“One of the reasons [crypto] is becoming so popular is because of what we’re doing to the dollar,” he argued.

Arizona House Speaker Pro Tempore Travis Grantham (R) addresses the crowd.

For this reason, Grantham felt it’s essential for voters to support candidates who don’t believe in regulating crypto out of existence, and to vote for politicians who support freedom as opposed to those who seek control.

“It’s a freedom and control issue,” said Grantham.

“[Some politicians want] control by keeping everybody married to one currency and not allowing anything else to break through, which crypto is doing. Competition is a good thing, especially when the person who controls the only thing is abusing it so badly,” he concluded.

Founders Aren’t Asking For Much

Next, a panel of crypto founders based in Arizona took the stage. The panel featured Thor Abassi, co-founder of DeFi protocol Zivoe; George Mekhail, VP of Operations for Bitcoin Magazine and co-organizer of the Arizona Bitcoin Network; and Shelton Beascochea, co-founder of DevilsDAO and Stand With Crypto Arizona Chapter President.

The industry leaders asked for little more than clear rules of the road from the US government, so that they could operate their businesses on-shore and compliantly. In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Abassi discussed the anxiety that crypto founders have faced due to unfair treatment by federal regulatory agencies under the Biden administration.

“One of the toughest things for our project is [knowing] how the industry can interact with banks,” Abassi told Bitcoin Magazine.

“We’ve all probably heard about Operation Chokepoint 2.0,” he added, referring to the government’s unconstitutional crackdown on the politically unfavorable, but not illegal crypto industry, which resulted in the debanking of many crypto companies.

“If we had regulation describing what crypto companies need to do in order to be banked, that would be hugely beneficial.”

George Mekhail addresses the crowd as part of a crypto founders panel.

Mekhail ended the spoken portion of the night’s programming on a high note, highlighting that the crypto industry has made notable progress, which will likely only gain steam moving forward.

“Think about where we were four years ago,” said Mekhail.

“We couldn’t have an event like this. The fact that 15% of Americans own some form of crypto is crazy, especially thinking about what it’s going to be four years from now,” he added.

“The momentum is behind us. It’s events like this and just showing up and demonstrating that we have a voice that is really important.”

The second date of the America Loves Crypto tour is scheduled for this evening, September 5, at The Space in Las Vegas, NV. You can RSVP to the event here.

In an exclusive interview with Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado discussed Bitcoin’s vital role in combating Venezuela’s economic collapse and authoritarianism. The interview, first published on Bitcoin Magazine, highlights the catastrophic impact of hyperinflation caused by the Chávez and Maduro regimes, which have devastated the Venezuelan bolívar.

BREAKING: 🇻🇪 Leader of Venezuelan Opposition María Corina Machado proposes using #Bitcoin as a national reserve asset.

Bitcoin is a “lifeline” and “vital means of resistance” 🙌 pic.twitter.com/5R1q7zVHyy

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) September 5, 2024

Machado noted that under Chávez and Maduro, the bolívar has lost 14 zeros, with inflation skyrocketing to 1.7 million percent in 2018. She described the economic destruction, stating, “This financial repression rooted in state-sponsored looting, theft, and unchecked money printing” crippled the economy despite Venezuela’s vast oil wealth.

During the interview, Gladstein emphasized how some Venezuelans turned to Bitcoin as a way to escape hyperinflation, protect their wealth, and fund their escape from the country. Machado echoed this, calling Bitcoin a “lifeline” for Venezuelans, a way to bypass government-controlled exchange rates. She proposed including Bitcoin in Venezuela’s future national reserves as the country seeks to recover its stolen wealth and rebuild from the dictatorship.

“Bitcoin bypasses government-imposed exchange rates and helps many of our people… It has evolved from a humanitarian tool to a vital means of resistance,” Machado stated.

Machado also spoke of the Venezuelan people’s determination to reclaim democracy, noting their historic efforts in confronting the regime. She hailed the use of technology like Bitcoin to ensure financial autonomy and help rebuild a new, free Venezuela.

Looking to the future, she envisions Bitcoin playing a key role in ensuring transparency, property rights, and economic freedom as part of Venezuela’s recovery plan, stating, “We envision Bitcoin as part of our national reserves, helping rebuild what the dictatorship stole.”

Those interested in supporting the Venezuelan opposition party’s efforts for a peaceful transition and the recognition of their victory can do so via the HRF here.