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BTC Sessions

Bitcast

A Investing , Business and Technology podcast Explicit

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About the show

Bitcast — Full-length episodes of BTC Sessions’ live Bitcoin commentary show covering macro, regulation, geopolitics, and adoption as it happens. Every week the legacy financial system hands Bitcoin a stronger argument. These complete episodes deliver the unfiltered discussion: the data point that reframes everything, the regulation story the mainstream press buried, and the adoption signal hiding in plain sight. Join BTC Sessions, Nathan Fitzsimmons, Walker America, Joey Temprile, Brandon Gentile and the full Bitcast crew for the sharpest, no-BS takes on everything moving Bitcoin. Topics include: → Macro economics & monetary policy → Bitcoin regulation & legislation → Geopolitics & energy markets → Self-custody, security & the tools being built → Bitcoin adoption by institutions, states & individuals No hype. No agendas. Just real Bitcoiners cutting through the noise. Whether you’re a seasoned HODLer, building your first stack, or just waking up to Bitcoin — Bitcast is your weekly pulse check on markets, geopolitics, and the real Bitcoin revolution. 🔗 Resources: → BTC Mentor (1-on-1 Bitcoin education): https://btcmentor.io → Free Bitcoin Starter Guide: https://btcsessions.ca → Follow on X: https://x.com/BTCSessions #Bitcoin #BTCSessions #Bitcast #BitcoinNews #BitcoinCommentary #MacroBitcoin

Newest episodes

The AI Bubble's Biggest Risk Was Never Leverage. It's Him.

1 hr 20 min

Here are the show notes: Jensen Huang just admitted to cheating on his wife with a woman U.S. intelligence suspects is tied to Chinese state security, Nvidia briefly erased over a quarter trillion in market cap, and somehow the rest of the market just shrugged it off. The crew digs into whether this is really about infidelity or something much bigger involving chip exports, Megaspeed, and a 600,000-GPU paper trail sitting in Hong Kong. In this episode: • Jensen Huang's public apology and the Nvidia stock reaction, down roughly $257 billion while the broader market hit new highs • The Alice Zhang story, her alleged ties to Megaspeed and Alibaba, and whether this is espionage or a distraction from a bigger problem • New York Times report on Nvidia allegedly routing around 600,000 chips to Beijing through Hong Kong • Binance CFO's sudden resignation and why the timing looks suspicious • Taiwan's new short-selling ban and a 15 billion fund after TSMC-linked stocks had their worst week since 2001 • Trump's press conference joke about the affair and the Dana White press secretary mix-up • Fed survey showing layoff fears at their highest since the COVID crash, plus a rundown of inflation expectations and rate-cut odds ahead of the next CPI print • Michael Saylor's Strategy buying another 1,037 Bitcoin, plus a debate on Nick Fuentes, Charlie Kirk's legacy, and Dave Chappelle's viral Charlie Kirk joke For the full conversation with charts, clips and all the reactions, check out the video version of this episode. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/gSo8S5riS5Q

Banking Collapse LOCKS OUT Half A Country And Wall Street Loses $3 Trillion

1 hr 13 min

Paraguay's banking collapse just took down the president and sent citizens dragging politicians out of Congress, with 60 percent of the country's savings reportedly frozen in a single institution. The crew breaks down why bank runs are a trust problem, not a math problem, then pivots to the US midterms, impeachment filings against Pete Hegseth, and a SoftBank stock collapse that's rattling the entire AI trade. Plus a Linux root exploit so dumb it has to be heard to be believed. In this episode: • Paraguay's bank collapse, the president's resignation, and footage of protesters dragging politicians including presidential candidate "PO" out of Congress • Why central bank bailouts just redistribute losses across the economy rather than fixing anything, and reports of stablecoin usage in Paraguay trading at a 13 percent premium • Post-midterm fallout including Rep. Thomas Massie filing to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over alleged war powers abuses • A breakdown of why the Republicans underperformed, from diesel and gas prices to Epstein files frustration to the rise of Nick Fuentes as a political flashpoint • SoftBank's stock down 59 percent since June on debt-fueled AI bets including 64 billion into OpenAI, plus record leveraged ETF inflows and the SOX semiconductor index's historic 5-day crash • The Alpine Linux bug letting a 257-character string grant root access, and the pulled FinCEN proposal to lower the crypto travel rule threshold to 250 dollars • Canada's new federal budget, ballooning deficit spending reclassified as "investment," and fresh immigration policy fallout Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/NMhilOtqU98

Trump Loses Both House And Senate BUT Bitcoin Rips To $81K Anyway

1 hr 20 min

Bitcoin tore through 80K within minutes of the Democrats sweeping both chambers, torching $320 million in shorts along the way, and the crew spends the hour arguing over what that actually means. Is Peter Schiff right that a hostile Congress spells doom for crypto, or does Bitcoin become more essential exactly when the political class gets more hostile? Along the way the show veers into Paraguay's banking contagion, a Satoshi-wallet rumor that turns out to be nothing, and whether the Republicans just handed away the easiest mandate in modern politics. In this episode: • Bitcoin rips past $81K on midterm results, wiping out $320 million in shorts in 30 minutes • Debate over Peter Schiff's thesis that a Democratic Congress means a more hostile crypto crackdown by 2028 • Discussion of Trump's $5,000 promise and the broader "buying votes" problem on both sides • Joey's take on AI mega-caps, data center buildout and why Bitcoin's price may be tied to a less free tech landscape • Fuentes versus MAGA, the Republican Party's possible 2028 fracture, and Vance's post-election comments • Satoshi-era wallet rumors debunked, plus the Binance fake-job-interview hack • Iran's nuclear shelter broadcast, Ottawa's emergency supply notice, and the French blood bank cyberattack • Paraguay's sixth-largest bank (UNO) shut down, deposits frozen, and fears of wider financial contagion • Updates on SDRC and Liquid getting back to par, plus reaction to Joe Nakamoto's new documentary on Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/9La50F_lmd0

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All episodes

The AI Bubble's Biggest Risk Was Never Leverage. It's Him.

1 hr 20 min

Here are the show notes: Jensen Huang just admitted to cheating on his wife with a woman U.S. intelligence suspects is tied to Chinese state security, Nvidia briefly erased over a quarter trillion in market cap, and somehow the rest of the market just shrugged it off. The crew digs into whether this is really about infidelity or something much bigger involving chip exports, Megaspeed, and a 600,000-GPU paper trail sitting in Hong Kong. In this episode: • Jensen Huang's public apology and the Nvidia stock reaction, down roughly $257 billion while the broader market hit new highs • The Alice Zhang story, her alleged ties to Megaspeed and Alibaba, and whether this is espionage or a distraction from a bigger problem • New York Times report on Nvidia allegedly routing around 600,000 chips to Beijing through Hong Kong • Binance CFO's sudden resignation and why the timing looks suspicious • Taiwan's new short-selling ban and a 15 billion fund after TSMC-linked stocks had their worst week since 2001 • Trump's press conference joke about the affair and the Dana White press secretary mix-up • Fed survey showing layoff fears at their highest since the COVID crash, plus a rundown of inflation expectations and rate-cut odds ahead of the next CPI print • Michael Saylor's Strategy buying another 1,037 Bitcoin, plus a debate on Nick Fuentes, Charlie Kirk's legacy, and Dave Chappelle's viral Charlie Kirk joke For the full conversation with charts, clips and all the reactions, check out the video version of this episode. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/gSo8S5riS5Q

Banking Collapse LOCKS OUT Half A Country And Wall Street Loses $3 Trillion

1 hr 13 min

Paraguay's banking collapse just took down the president and sent citizens dragging politicians out of Congress, with 60 percent of the country's savings reportedly frozen in a single institution. The crew breaks down why bank runs are a trust problem, not a math problem, then pivots to the US midterms, impeachment filings against Pete Hegseth, and a SoftBank stock collapse that's rattling the entire AI trade. Plus a Linux root exploit so dumb it has to be heard to be believed. In this episode: • Paraguay's bank collapse, the president's resignation, and footage of protesters dragging politicians including presidential candidate "PO" out of Congress • Why central bank bailouts just redistribute losses across the economy rather than fixing anything, and reports of stablecoin usage in Paraguay trading at a 13 percent premium • Post-midterm fallout including Rep. Thomas Massie filing to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over alleged war powers abuses • A breakdown of why the Republicans underperformed, from diesel and gas prices to Epstein files frustration to the rise of Nick Fuentes as a political flashpoint • SoftBank's stock down 59 percent since June on debt-fueled AI bets including 64 billion into OpenAI, plus record leveraged ETF inflows and the SOX semiconductor index's historic 5-day crash • The Alpine Linux bug letting a 257-character string grant root access, and the pulled FinCEN proposal to lower the crypto travel rule threshold to 250 dollars • Canada's new federal budget, ballooning deficit spending reclassified as "investment," and fresh immigration policy fallout Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/NMhilOtqU98

Trump Loses Both House And Senate BUT Bitcoin Rips To $81K Anyway

1 hr 20 min

Bitcoin tore through 80K within minutes of the Democrats sweeping both chambers, torching $320 million in shorts along the way, and the crew spends the hour arguing over what that actually means. Is Peter Schiff right that a hostile Congress spells doom for crypto, or does Bitcoin become more essential exactly when the political class gets more hostile? Along the way the show veers into Paraguay's banking contagion, a Satoshi-wallet rumor that turns out to be nothing, and whether the Republicans just handed away the easiest mandate in modern politics. In this episode: • Bitcoin rips past $81K on midterm results, wiping out $320 million in shorts in 30 minutes • Debate over Peter Schiff's thesis that a Democratic Congress means a more hostile crypto crackdown by 2028 • Discussion of Trump's $5,000 promise and the broader "buying votes" problem on both sides • Joey's take on AI mega-caps, data center buildout and why Bitcoin's price may be tied to a less free tech landscape • Fuentes versus MAGA, the Republican Party's possible 2028 fracture, and Vance's post-election comments • Satoshi-era wallet rumors debunked, plus the Binance fake-job-interview hack • Iran's nuclear shelter broadcast, Ottawa's emergency supply notice, and the French blood bank cyberattack • Paraguay's sixth-largest bank (UNO) shut down, deposits frozen, and fears of wider financial contagion • Updates on SDRC and Liquid getting back to par, plus reaction to Joe Nakamoto's new documentary on Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/9La50F_lmd0

Hackers Drain $40M From Brazil's Largest Exchange and Attack Europe's Food Supply

1 hr 34 min

Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil's largest exchange, just got drained for over 40 million dollars and froze every withdrawal, landing days after Binance's record-breaking 6.3 billion dollar heist that the FBI pinned on North Korea's Lazarus-linked hackers. Meanwhile hackers pushed supermarket fridges to 50 degrees Celsius across seven European countries and hit U.S. military bases, fake nuclear alerts went out in Russia and Ukraine, and the panel digs into why AI-assisted attacks, IoT overreach and over-regulation are quietly becoming the real threat model for 2026. In this episode: • Mercado Bitcoin hacked for over 40 million dollars just months after Tether invested 20 million to fuel its Latin America expansion • FBI attributes the 6.3 billion dollar Binance hack to North Korea's TraderTraitor and Lazarus Group, while North Korea publicly denies involvement • Why smaller, non-US exchanges may be the canary in the coal mine for AI-assisted cyberattacks, and a BTCPay Server hot wallet exploit sweeping funds on versions 2.4.1 and older • Supermarket and military base refrigeration hacked across Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, Estonia, Ireland, Netherlands and Finland, tied to outdated Danfoss OS vulnerabilities • Fake nuclear strike alerts hit Russia and Ukraine amid reporting on Netanyahu pressing Trump on Iran, plus talk of possible midterm-day disruptions • Prediction markets pricing a 73 percent chance of a Democratic sweep in Tuesday's midterms • France's proposed internet traffic tax that could add roughly 12 euros to downloading GTA 6, and Bull Bitcoin's and Bitcoin Austria's legal fights against DAC8 KYC rules • The Learjet crash in Palm Springs involving a 20-year-old co-pilot, and what it says about eroding competence standards Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/Fg6ib5M1mv4

How Binance Got Hit By The BIGGEST HEIST In Human History

1 hr 42 min

Binance just got taken for 6.4 billion dollars in under an hour, the biggest heist in human history, and the crew breaks down exactly how it happened, why Chainalysis is pointing at North Korea, and what it means that even the firm tracking the hackers got hacked too. From there it spirals into treasury-wallet implants, a Bitcoin-only CEO explaining why honeypots are honeypots no matter how big the logo is, and a deep dive into Canada's strange new AI "sovereignty" play. In this episode: • The Binance hack: 6.4 billion dollars drained across multiple chains, 2.8 billion frozen, laundering tied by Chainalysis to North Korea's Lazarus-linked Trader Traitor group • Bitcoin Well CEO Adam joins to explain non-custodial exchange design and why custodial exchanges are "rung two" on the counterparty ladder • Jameson Lopp and River's reactions, plus speculation about CZ, Binance's balance sheet, and the FTX-era parallels • A second hardware wallet scare: a Trezor bought from reseller Cryptobillis found with a hardware implant, same reseller tied to earlier Ledger tampering • Chainalysis, Breaking Voltage and Polymarket all disclosing their own separate breaches in the same news cycle • Mark Karpeles of Mt. Gox weighing in on the Trezor findings • Canada's new national security plan, weak jobs data, and the government's multi-billion dollar stake in AI company Cohere picked apart as a "sovereignty" mirage • A genuinely bizarre local Canadian TV clip on neurodivergence and drag that has to be seen to be believed Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/vK73YZcnlXs

Bitcoin Treasury Implodes After 4-Month Lockout - Fed Holds, Hawks Want Higher

1 hr 28 min

Bitcoin treasury company Data Vault has been trying for four months to pull its Bitcoin off an exchange called Biconomy, and the stock has cratered 88 percent year to date while the crew digs into a company with a shifting headquarters story and a CEO whose public appearances point to Dubai. From there it's a full tour of the week's chaos: a Fed hold with two dissenting hawks, a Coinbase vendor leak hitting 70,000 users, Google wading into crypto custody, and what might be the strangest Bitcoin Core bug disclosure ever filmed. In this episode: • Data Vault's four-month failed Bitcoin withdrawal from Biconomy and the stock's 88 percent year-to-date collapse • Sleuthing Biconomy's murky origins, from "leading Canadian exchange" in 2021 to a British Virgin Islands registration based in Dubai • The Fed holds rates 10-2 with Cook and Hammack dissenting in favor of a hike, plus a contrasting rate hike decision from the Bank of Canada • MSTR shareholders approve daily dividend accrual at 99.3 percent, and a debate over STRC versus STRK pricing and dilution risk • A Coinbase data breach via analytics vendor Amplitude affecting roughly 70,000 users, following prior 2021, 2023 and bribery-related incidents • Google's new crypto custody framework for banks and speculation on its real motive, from data gathering to post-quantum positioning • A bizarre Bitcoin Core inflation bug disclosure delivered as a Seinfeld-style AI-generated bit, plus two medium-severity memory exhaustion vulnerabilities patched • Bitcoin hash rate climbing back near all-time highs despite miners publicly pivoting to AI data centers Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/sQ_0Uf1ifEw

BREAKING: Foundation Phishing Attack Hits Customers - Electrum Users Lose Coins

1 hr 19 min

Foundation just confirmed its support inbox got hijacked, spraying over 20,000 phishing emails at customers through a back-end vulnerability, and one guy's "deleted" data showed up in the attack anyway. On top of that, Electrum has a confirmed RBF exploit letting a malicious server swap your transaction and steal funds the moment you bump a fee, Keystone is now the latest hardware wallet maker admitting a breach, and the crew spends the hour arguing about what self-custody even means anymore when AI-assisted attacks are hitting every wallet company in Bitcoin. In this episode: • Foundation's 20,000+ phishing emails after a self-hosted app breach exposed its support inbox, and Zach Herbert's response to customer backlash • Electrum's confirmed RBF vulnerability letting malicious servers hijack fee-bumped transactions, fixed only in version 4.8.3 • Keystone's newly announced data breach, and how it compares to the earlier Cold Card and Ledger incidents • Why the hosts argue AI has made hardware wallet and infrastructure security dramatically harder to guarantee • A debate on whether single-sig self-custody is still responsible advice for newcomers, versus exchanges, Casa multisig or Anchorage-style insured custody • Anthropic's IPO filings showing a 42 billion dollar loss and an 80 billion run rate, plus Microsoft's buyout offer to 60,000 employees • Vitalik Buterin's comments on restricting offensive cyber capabilities in open-weight AI models, and the EA versus e/acc framing the hosts apply to it • Bitcoin Core's policy shift to prioritize AI-discovered vulnerabilities, and a long riff on Michael Saylor, MSTR and STRC heading into the US election Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/WtcS41n-zpQ

Node2Shell Exploit Hits OpenAI Stack - Gold Drops as Iran War Fears Escalate

1 hr 22 min

A 104,000-certificate revocation from GoDaddy is just the tip of the iceberg tonight, with PHP2Shell being actively exploited in the wild and a Node2Shell flaw hitting the official Node.js image itself. Oil has ripped above 117 a barrel on Iran war fears while gold inexplicably falls below 4000, and the crew gets into a heated, fact-checking takedown of Chamath's "quantum will break Bitcoin" claims with Strive's Adam Livingston joining the conversation. In this episode: • The PHP2Shell and Node2Shell exploits, GoDaddy's mass TLS certificate revocation, and why AWS says it's being actively exploited right now • OpenAI's Codex model (reportedly GPT-5, not 6) surfacing critical vulnerabilities that had sat unpatched for months • Banks detecting unauthorized AI agents accessing customer accounts, and whether that's really about security or about blocking deposit flight • Speculation on whether Coinbase, Kraken and other exchanges are already being probed or compromised and simply not disclosing it • Chamath Palihapitiya's quantum-computing-breaks-Bitcoin claims getting dismantled, with pointed comments about his and Nick Carter's quantum-security investments • Strive's Adam Livingston on Bitcoin's rising correlation with gold, Strive's daily dividend structure, and how it compares to Strategy's STRC/SATS move • The Coinkite Cold Card lawsuit in Ontario and a broader debate on self-custody risk versus ETF and treasury-company exposure • Alberta's independence referendum, the vote turnout numbers, and a side discussion on Texas secession talk with a Minnesota-based guest Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/11Xo4WkkSZo

Bitcoin Breaks $84K as ETFs Pull In $550M in Two Days

1 hr 25 min

Bitcoin ripped back above $84,000 on $549 million of ETF inflows in two trading sessions and $50 million in leverage shorts wiped out in 24 hours, and the crew digs into whether this is the real breakout or just a hormonal teenager phase. Joe brings fractal charts comparing this setup to 2022 and late 2019 and calls for a brisk walk to 100K after midterms, while the gang tears into JP Morgan's new decade-long forecast naming Bitcoin the best performing asset of the next ten years, even though the bank still won't put it in its own model portfolios. In this episode: • ETF inflows push Bitcoin above 84K, with chartists calling it a confirmed breakout and Joe debuting his homemade Bitcoin terminal • JP Morgan's decade-ahead forecast names Bitcoin the top performing asset but excludes it from model portfolios, plus the contradictory stance on debasement • Fidelity and Bank of America's small-allocation research and whether pensions and sovereign wealth funds will follow JP Morgan's lead • Anthropic's reported 80 billion dollar loss, AI debt issuance, Google's record bond offering and the growing talk of government backstops for data centers • The economics of AI subscriptions, why frontier labs are racing to cut token costs, and new assistant agents like OpenAI's dot and Anthropic's Duet • The Genius Act, OCC stablecoin rules, the American Bankers Association's pushback, and why stablecoins may force banks to raise yields • Strategy and treasury company talk, including Strive's latest Bitcoin buy, a Clear Street price target on MSTR, and the case for staying long Bitcoin itself • The PHP vulnerability knocking government websites offline across Finland, the Netherlands, France and Canada, and practical security advice on password managers and two factor authentication For the full conversation with charts, terminal screens and all the visual back and forth, check out the video version of this episode. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/031ks2nfIcw

Vivek Ramaswamy Now Holds $3B In Bitcoin - A German Bank Just Opened The Door

1 hr 33 min

Vivek Ramaswamy's Strive just added another 1,200 Bitcoin for roughly $100 million, pushing their stack near 37,000 coins worth about $3 billion, and the crew dives into whether daily Bitcoin dividends are becoming a real moat or a race to zero. From there it's German banks opening Bitcoin trading to tens of millions of customers, a new Visa-backed push to let 175 million merchants accept Bitcoin and stablecoins, and a pretty blunt debate about why none of this "Bitcoin is coming to everything" news ever seems to move the needle. In this episode: • Strive's latest 1,200 BTC buy and the math behind daily dividend yields versus Saylor's MSTR payouts • Why Joey calls Strive's STRC and similar products a "race to zero" on dividend rates, and the cost-of-capital logic behind Saylor's numbers • German bank Sparkasse opening Bitcoin trading to 40-46 million customers directly inside its banking app • A new PayPal, Paradigm and SBI-backed effort bringing Bitcoin and stablecoin payments to 175 million Visa merchants • Block's Cash App numbers - 59 million active accounts and roughly 24 million who've bought Bitcoin - and why most people still won't spend it • The UK's HMRC resuming direct seizures from bank accounts for unpaid taxes without a court order • Canada's new labor rules waiving job-market checks for "high wage" foreign hires, and rising Canada-to-US emigration numbers • YouTube pulling Ben's self-hosted media server tutorial and the group's workaround using Nostr and X for censorship-resistant publishing For the full conversation and visuals, head over to the video version of this episode. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/iBFjTd3WC8M

Russia Comes for Your Keys & MSCI Comes for Saylor

1 hr 21 min

Russia just slammed the door on self-custody, Deutsche Bank is opening one for 28 million clients, and somehow both stories say the same thing about where this is all heading. Add in a Toronto kidnapping involving active Canadian soldiers and a wave of eerily well-informed scam calls hitting the hosts directly, and this episode turns into a real-talk session on operational security as much as markets. Sailor also gets roasted for getting booted from MSCI anyway after selling Bitcoin specifically to stay in it. In this episode: • Russia's central bank bans self-custody transfers from regulated crypto accounts starting July 2027, with non-qualified investors capped at roughly 300,000 rubles a year • MSCI removes MicroStrategy from its indexes, Saylor calls it prejudicial, Joey argues he sold Bitcoin specifically to stay in the index and got kicked out anyway, estimates of up to 2.8 billion in forced passive outflows • A Toronto Bitcoin owner kidnapped by a gang of seven, including three serving Canadian Armed Forces members, 82 charges laid, stolen military ammunition involved • Ben and a listener named Mike from CoinCards both targeted by sophisticated fake RCMP, Trezor and CoinCover scam calls designed to extract seed phrases • Deutsche Bank announcing Bitcoin custody for its 28 million clients by mid-2026, and whether institutional on-ramps like this actually move the needle • Citizen Lab uncovers spyware delivered through targeted online ads with no user interaction, tied to an Israeli ad-tech firm • Ledger announces a new always-connected security device called Ledger Adam, sparking debate over expanding attack surface versus Foundation's offline-first approach • Weak economic data roundup: hot PPI print, Nasdaq erasing trillions in market cap, South Korea's circuit breaker, and one in five American families falling behind on loan payments Full video version with all the charts, screen shares and reactions is up on the BTC Sessions YouTube channel if you want t...

Strategy vs Strive: Trading Blows To Be Bitcoin’s #1

1 hr 38 min

Strive just dropped a 15 percent fixed-rate perpetual preferred and strategy is firing back with a daily dividend vote on STRC that closes October 27th, and the crew digs into why neither of these "Bitcoin credit" products is actually credit at all. Plus Richard Hart gets dragged out of Istanbul in handcuffs with watches, guns and ammo seized, and the ledger supply chain mess somehow gets worse with Southeast Asian resellers pulling product off shelves. In this episode: • Strive's 15 percent fixed-rate perpetual preferred IPO versus strategy's proposed daily STRC dividend, and what the shareholder vote (open through October 27) signals about Michael Saylor's standing • Why the hosts argue these preferred equity products are being marketed with misleading "Bitcoin credit" framing when holders have no claim on the underlying Bitcoin • The OCC's confirmed findings on Operation Choke Point 2.0, naming digital assets as one of six industries systematically debanked for reputational rather than risk reasons • Treasury's 1.21 billion dollar penalty against Bank of America for anti-money laundering and sanctions violations, the third largest in Treasury history • Hex founder Richard Hart arrested in Istanbul on an Interpol red notice, with cash, firearms, jewelry and electronics seized • The ongoing Ledger supply chain compromise, resellers suspending sales across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, plus new claims and pushback around Trezor device security • BitChat's new Android release, its use of Bluetooth mesh networking during internet blackouts, and why governments in China and India have moved to ban it • A closing riff on the Shane Gillis SNL monologue controversy and what the backlash says about modern outrage culture For the full visual conversation including the charts, clips and website walkthroughs, check out the video version of this episode. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/UIQxNeEKd_0

They're Hiding A 4G Modem Inside Ledger Wallets And It's Reached Europe

1 hr 27 min

Researchers have found a second compromised Ledger device hidden inside a European electronics retailer, this time with its own 4G modem secretly phoning seed phrases home, and the crew breaks down exactly how the scam works, why it is not technically a Ledger supply chain hack, and what it means if you bought your hardware wallet anywhere but direct. From there the conversation turns into a real reckoning about self custody itself: is multisig, DIY builds and circuit inspections really a reasonable ask for a newcomer, and are shitcoin profits secretly the thing funding better security audits for Bitcoin only hardware. In this episode: • The newly discovered 4G LTE modem and hidden antenna found inside a tampered Ledger Stax, and the expanding retailer watch list including Media Markt • Why the panel insists this is downstream of Ledger's supply chain, not a direct Ledger breach, plus a look back at Ledger's past data leaks • Cold Card's clear case jab and a genuine debate over whether a "throw it in the chip sorting algorithm" approach to visual circuit inspection is actually useful • The uncomfortable argument that shitcoin revenue may be subsidizing better security audits for the Bitcoin only hardware makers • Practical anti tamper tricks discussed: weighing devices against manufacturer specs, checking adhesive seams, and moving toward multisig with devices from different vendors • Michael Saylor's latest buy (848,250 BTC now held), STRC repurchases, and a running bit about MSTR's sats per share chart • Luke Gromen's currency framing of US housing prices versus gold, and the panel's take on immigration, rate lock in and regulation as the real distortions • Europol's quantum computing warning for crypto wallets, a 14 year old Bitcoin address moving coins, and the Moscow Exchange opening Bitcoin trading to 40 million clients Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/22nGCxiu_Bs

Bitcoin Attacked From All Sides — $86 Million Stolen And France Wants Your Keys

1 hr 39 min

A ledger supply-chain hack just drained $86 million from hundreds of wallets, and the crew digs into how a reseller swap to a new owner turned into physical tampering between a device's secure element and screen. Then it's over to France, where lawmakers are pushing wallet declarations, exit taxes and stablecoin swap taxes on anyone holding crypto, all while the country logs 90 physical attacks on Bitcoiners in seven months. Add in Tether freezing Thorchain vaults, Trump buying more MSTR, and Elon's Starlink move that's tanking telecom stocks, and it's a packed one. In this episode: • The Ledger/Cryptobillis hack: $86 million drained across Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron, tied to a reseller sold to a Chinese national two months before the attack • Why Joey and Joe Consorti say Ledger shares the blame for not vetting resellers after ownership changes, and the case for multisig and splitting custody across devices • France's new crypto tax bill: stablecoin conversion taxes, an exit tax over 800,000 euros, and a floated 100,000 euro wallet declaration rule • Tether freezing roughly 93 percent of Thorchain's Tron USDT and what it says about "decentralized" chains • Scott Bessent's debt-to-GDP comments, the Trump-Russia diesel license, and the Microsoft/Adobe H-1B visa suspension • Strategy (MSTR) trading volume passing Google, Trump's added MSTR position, and a STRC versus STRF dividend comparison with Joe Consorti • Canada's September jobs report showing 68,300 jobs lost and the ongoing Brampton housing collapse • SpaceX's Starlink spectrum deal hammering Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile stock, plus a detour into Palmer Luckey's latest comments Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/1awJiVmyVxk

Fed Is Quietly Checking Biggest Banks' Exposure To $1.3T Private Credit

1 hr 34 min

Bitcoin cracked below 83,000 today as hundreds of millions in leveraged longs got wiped out during Strait of Hormuz tanker attacks, but the real story might be what the New York Fed is quietly doing inside JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Barclays and Morgan Stanley. The crew digs into why examiners are suddenly asking about $1.3 trillion in private credit exposure, plus a wild tangent on gold reserves, Fortress North America, and why French teenagers are burning down schools over homework. In this episode: • Bitcoin drops to 83,321 with 150-400 million in leveraged longs liquidated in hours, and why buy-side support sits at 81-82k • New York Fed examiners go inside JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Barclays and Morgan Stanley over private credit exposure and collateral quality • Private credit defaults hit a record 6.3 percent as Apollo, BlackRock and Blue Owl impose withdrawal limits • A strong 10-year Treasury auction (2.7 bid-to-cover) complicates Luke Gromen's thesis on banks dumping bad private credit • Bessent's Treasury buyback plan brings the week's total near 10 billion as 30-year yields hit multi-decade highs • Robin Hood's first-ever Bitcoin purchase, a 25 million dollar balance sheet add, plus China and Russia's accelerating gold buys • France's government weighing a bypass of Parliament for 43 billion in budget cuts amid violent student protests • A deep dive on boomer polling data favoring higher taxes on younger workers, and Canada's Patrick Pichette "pay it back" tuition clip For the full conversation with charts, clips and all the tangents, check out the video version of this episode. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/sTKgYGTQ3X4

The US Government Just Backed Off Bitcoin Surveillance

1 hr 26 min

Treasury just quietly killed the $3,000 and $10,000 self-custody wallet reporting rules that CoinCenter fought for years, and the crew calls it a real win, but they're not letting anyone forget that Bill and Keone from Samurai Wallet are still sitting in federal prison for building privacy tech. From there the conversation spirals into Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey getting pulled into a Pentagon project on the future of warfare, a bond market that's creaking everywhere from Japan to the UK, and a UK town getting locked down by police for a migrant boat that hadn't even landed yet. In this episode: • Treasury withdraws the FinCEN unhosted wallet and mixer rules that would have required reporting on self-custody transactions over $3,000 and $10,000 • Why Bill Hermosillo and Keone Rodriguez (Samurai Wallet) deserve pardons, and the SDNY jurisdiction maneuver used to prosecute them • Elon Musk, Newt Gingrich and Palmer Luckey tapped for Project Meridian, a 120-day Pentagon study on the future of war • MicroStrategy's latest buy, 344 BTC added, bringing holdings to 848,000 BTC, plus a breaking CFTC proposal on crypto market rules • Credit market stress check: UK and US 30-year yields pushing toward 6 percent, CCC junk bonds at 17 percent, mortgage applications at the lowest since 1995 • USAID's dismantling and its claimed link to a string of right-leaning wins in Brazil and elsewhere since 2025 • A Siberian lab plague outbreak story out of Russia and whether it's fear porn or a real event worth prepping for • India pulls BitChat from the App Store, plus a UK town placed under a Section 34 dispersal order for an incoming migrant boat Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/1gVHEs4WLMc

60,000 Jobs Vanished, Warsh Already Hiked - Bitcoin Rips To $87,000

1 hr 29 min

Bitcoin briefly tagged 87K the same day the September jobs report landed at just 29,000 versus 89,000 expected, rate hike odds collapsed from the 60s down near 17 percent, and the crew digs into whether Kevin Warsh already made a policy mistake by hiking before seeing the revised numbers. From there it's a wide-ranging rip through debt, dollar debasement, Trump saying inflation could pay down the $40 trillion debt "faster than anyone's ever seen," and a wild detour into French riots, Canadian tax exodus fears, and sending Bitcoin with zero internet connection. In this episode: • September jobs report misses badly, August revised down, rate hike odds crater to 17 percent per CME futures • Luke Gromen's fiscal dominance thesis and why a weaker dollar may be the only way out • IMF approves a $139 million disbursement to El Salvador after waiving its Bitcoin accumulation breach • Trump's "inflation could pay down the debt" comment and reactions from Larry Lepard and Saifedean • Treasury's repeated bond buybacks and why they're barely denting long-end yields • The Netherlands scraps a proposed 36 percent unrealized gains tax on Bitcoin, gold and silver after fears of investor exodus • Canada-EU associate membership talk and what it means for capital flight and tax policy • A demo of sending Bitcoin eCash over Apple's Find My mesh network with zero internet, plus Ben's custom Cold Card firmware redesign Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/nlbNJoxsPWQ

Coinbase Accused Of Hiding $1 Billion In Thefts - The Bond Market Is Breaking

1 hr 20 min

An Ari Paul tweet storm is rocking the Bitcoin world, alleging Coinbase buried over a billion dollars in Lazarus Group hacks and ransom payments while telling pensioners and investors they'd never been hacked. The crew digs into what that means for self custody, for the 84 percent of Bitcoin ETF assets Coinbase holds in custody, and why they think exchanges self-insure rather than carry real coverage. From there it's a sprint through a bond market that just will not believe the inflation numbers, Germany's looming Bitcoin tax changes, a bearish Canadian bond auction, and whether Anthropic's leaked IPO numbers are the first crack in the AI debt bubble. In this episode: • Ari Paul's allegations that Coinbase covered up over a billion dollars in Lazarus Group related hacks and ransom payments across a dozen firms • What Coinbase's thin insurance coverage (reportedly 400 million) against 245 billion in platform assets and 8.8 billion cash on hand actually means for custody risk • Coinbase holding 84 percent of spot Bitcoin ETF assets and what that concentration risk looks like for institutional investors • August PCE inflation coming in below expectations while the 10 year and 30 year Treasury yields hit multi-year highs, and why the panel distrusts the revised methodology • Germany's proposed changes to its one-year tax-free Bitcoin holding period and a new 25 percent plus solidarity tax, plus a look at German economic sentiment • Peter Brandt's surprisingly bullish 300,000 to 600,000 dollar Bitcoin price targets and whether diminishing returns are a thing of the past • Anthropic's leaked IPO prospectus showing a 42 billion dollar net loss and 518 billion dollars in compute obligations, and what that says about the AI spending bubble • Canada's weak 30 year bond auction, the loonie nearing 70 cents, Bill C-2 on encryption backdoors, and the EU's chat control proposal getting blocked again Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/XFdKyeNP3J4

Yields Explode to 5.27% — Sixth Bank Failure Confirmed, Nobody's Talking About It.

1 hr 24 min

10-year Treasury yields just tore through 5.27 percent, the highest print in 19 years, the S&P dropped 700 billion in a single session, and a sixth US bank quietly failed in 2025 — triple the pace of the last two years combined. Meanwhile Bitcoin shrugged it all off, closing above 84,000 for its best weekly close in eight months, and Strategy kept buying. The crew breaks down why gold and silver are suddenly getting hammered even as the debasement trade should be roaring, and gets into a genuinely wild tangent on America, AI abundance, and why building beats complaining. In this episode: • 10-year yield hits 5.27 percent, highest since the GFC era, with talk of a run toward 6 percent by November • Nanobank becomes the sixth US bank failure of 2025 after 25 percent of its commercial real estate loan book went bad • Gold down almost 4 percent and silver down 5.7 percent in a single stretch, and what that says about the "higher for longer" regime • Bitcoin closes above 84,000, up 45 percent from June lows, and Wicked Smart Bitcoin's DCA data showing every historical buyer is still in profit • Strategy buys another 1,665 BTC and repurchases 152 million in STRC, plus a debate on MSTR dilution and Bitcoin-per-share • River Financial sues Blockstream Services Canada over a 6.7 million dollar termination agreement, with confusion over Blockstream's actual ownership structure • Oracle's credit default swap spreads surge past 2008 levels amid stress tied to its AI data center buildout, plus Meta's data center bonds getting downgraded • Bank of Canada holds rates at 2.75 percent, Mark Carney shifts a Starlink contract to a rival firm, and Stelco shuts its Hamilton steel plant for good For the full conversation with charts, graphics and all the tangents, check out the video version of this episode. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/CXVHx_Lntsk

Saylor Forced To Copy Strive - North Korea Hacked Bitget For $351 Million

1 hr 31 min

A $351 million exchange hack, a bond market flashing 25-year highs, and Strategy quietly copying the competitor it used to mock with daily dividends — this week's Bitcast covers all of it, plus a wild cameo from a very confused "convert" named Walter and a former radiologist explaining why Bitcoin's price runs on three burners. Ben, Joey, Nathan and Brandon are joined by Adam Bitcoin and returning guest Dr. Jeff Ross for a wide-ranging rundown of what's actually moving markets right now. In this episode: • Strategy proposing daily dividends across STRC, STRK and its preferred stock lineup, and why Joey calls it proof the "balance sheet composition" pitch was always cover for chasing SATA's yield game • The Bitget hack: $351.6 million stolen, a $464 million user protection fund covering it, and how it stacks up against Mt. Gox, QuadrigaCX, FTX and the Cold Card phishing losses • Adam's "counterparty ladder" framework — why holding Bitcoin on an exchange is worse than a dedicated custodian, and the honeypot problem proof-of-reserves can't fix • Tether's reported $183 billion USDT push onto the Bitcoin base layer, Morgan Stanley talks, and whether stablecoins are actually a top-of-funnel bridge into Bitcoin • Dr. Jeff Ross breaking down the bond bear market, 5.2% ten-year yields, Bessent's "Operation Twist," and why AI data center spending is now competing with Treasuries for capital • The "three burners" framework for Bitcoin's price: liquidity, US manufacturing strength, and leverage in the system, and where each stands heading into 2027 • A new proposed protocol for shielded, private Bitcoin transfers on the base layer using zero-knowledge proofs, with no soft fork required • Jack Dorsey and Block joining the 402 Foundation to bring Lightning payments to AI agents Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/vjACKX23jYs

BlackRock: AI Will Run on Bitcoin as Treasury Crashes

1 hr 19 min

Bitcoin at $84,385 while the US 10-year Treasury just hit a 19-year high — and the hosts are asking whether the bond market is simply breaking. BlackRock published research arguing that AI agents will need permissionless, machine-native money to transact autonomously, and the crew has a lot to say about which asset actually fits that description. In this episode: • US Treasury yields hit multi-decade highs across the entire curve — 1-year at a 25-month high, 30-year at a 19-year high — while the Treasury Department quietly doubled its bond buyback program from roughly $2 billion to $6 billion. • BlackRock's digital assets research paper claims AI agents will need "machine-native money" for autonomous microtransactions; the hosts debate whether that inevitably points to Bitcoin, and reference the Bitcoin Policy Institute's moneyforai.org report showing ChatGPT and Gemini favor stablecoins while Grok and Claude prefer Bitcoin. • X/Twitter integrated ticker-based trading functionality, which the hosts read as a gateway to retail crypto speculation and prediction market gambling baked directly into the social feed. • Tether confirmed it is exiting the EU after MiCA regulations would have forced 60% of reserves into commercial bank deposits — replacing US Treasury holdings with uninsured bank accounts capped at €100,000 per depositor. • Bitcoin ETF flows flipped positive for the year despite bond market chaos, with Bitcoin holding near $84,000 while traditional markets struggled. • The Blake2B fork continues its slow implosion: a node operator reported a Raspberry Pi would take 45 days to sync the new chain, and the project's lead developer responded "get a real computer" — directly contradicting the original argument that the fork was needed to keep node operation accessible. • Umbrel released a major update adding an AI agent layer that lets users manage their personal server, install apps, and automate setup tasks through plain-language chat commands. Watch t...

Saylor Up $6M on New BTC Buy as War Escalates.

1 hr 35 min

Bitcoin punched through $87K while wars escalate across the Middle East and Ukraine, shorts got obliterated to the tune of nearly $900 million, and Strategy quietly stacked another 950 coins — already up $6 million on the buy. Meanwhile, a custodial wallet breach and a clever AI trading bot scam are reminding everyone exactly why self-custody still matters. In this episode: • Strategy bought 950 more bitcoin for $174 million at roughly $79K average, pushing their unrealized profit to $8.75 billion after a swing of more than $20 billion from peak loss to current gain — and Joey finally admits he took a sizeable MSTR position that's up 26%. • Bitcoin crossed its 50-week moving average at $86,300, historically the dividing line between bear and bull territory; the crew debates whether the four-year halving cycle is dead and why this drawdown looked nothing like previous bear markets. • A data breakdown shows someone who held Bitcoin for a decade turned $1,000 into $135,000; someone who missed just the 10 best days each year ended up with $10 and change — a case for DCA over trading. • US air assets including seven aerial refueling tankers and an MQ-4C Triton are operating over the Persian Gulf; Treasury Secretary Bessant announced Iranian airlines will be cut off from the US dollar system on September 23rd, threatening any airport or company that assists them. • Blink Wallet paused services after an attacker drained a limited number of custodial accounts; the crew breaks down what good crisis communications look like versus what actually happened. • Scammers used fake AI crypto trading bot tutorials on YouTube to trick 224 wallets into deploying malicious smart contracts, draining 274 ETH worth roughly $517,000 — all ETH, the crew notes. • A Canadian woman described as an 83-year-old was administered assisted dying despite her daughter saying she cried for 45 minutes and said "I've made a mistake" when told what was actually happening Friday. Watch the video v...

Buffett Ran Berkshire For Every Year Of The Fiat Era And Just Walked Out

1 hr 23 min

Bitcoin ripped through $81,000 in a single session, liquidating $300 million in shorts in four hours — and nobody can fully explain why, given that macro headwinds are still firmly in place. On the same day, Warren Buffett stepped down as Berkshire Hathaway chairman after roughly 60 years, closing out a career that spans the entire fiat era. The timing felt like more than coincidence to the Bitcast crew. In this episode: • Bitcoin surges past $81,000 with $300 million in short liquidations in four hours — the hosts debate whether it was supply exhaustion, a liquidation cascade, or markets reacting positively to Fed Chair Kevin Worsh's unusually brief, 15-minute press conference. • The Fed hiked rates and the dot plot signals another possible 25 basis point hike in October — Arthur Hayes argues hiking with elevated government debt is actually stimulative; Dan Tapiero pushes back, calling the timing politically damaging for Republicans in the midterms. • Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway chairman at age 96, handing the role to his son — the crew notes he took the helm in 1970, one year before Nixon's gold shock, and has been riding the fiat wave ever since. • Mark Carney's newly elected Canadian government deepens ties with the EU while Canada sits last in G7 economic rankings — the hosts dissect what associate EU membership could mean for Canadian brain drain and capital flight. • A bill in Congress would require ISPs, DNS providers, and VPNs to block piracy sites — discussed alongside local AI models like Qwen 3 running on consumer hardware and privacy tools including Obscura VPN and Nostr VPN. • Google confirms a zero-click, zero-day vulnerability in Pixel phone cellular modems that requires no user interaction — update your Pixel immediately, including GrapheneOS users. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/PQCokX1vti8

The Senate Killed the Clarity Act, Warsh Killed Trump's Rate Cut

1 hr 24 min

A hacked Flock license plate camera exposed 1.6 million images — despite the company's claims that footage couldn't be accessed even with physical device access. Meanwhile, the Senate killed the Clarity Act 49-50, the Fed hiked rates 25 basis points, and open-source AI models are quietly disappearing from public repositories. This episode is about who controls the infrastructure of your life, and what you can do about it. In this episode: • Fed governor Kevin Warsh explains why he hiked rates 25 basis points, citing nearly six years of inflation above the 2% target and a 12-month PCE reading around 3.6% in August — while Bitcoin barely moved, trading flat around 76K • Trump publicly called for rates cut to 1% or lower; the hosts debate whether the Fed is simply chasing the two-year Treasury yield and whether the dot plot carries any real predictive weight • The Senate voted 49-50 to kill the CLARITY Act; Joe Nakamoto argues it was primarily a stablecoin and altcoin clarity bill, making the failure less existential for Bitcoin specifically • The US House advanced the American Reserve Modernization Act establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve, plus a separate measure exempting Bitcoin network fees from capital gains tax, passing committee 38-5 • Decent wallet flagged abnormal asset transfers affecting users, Core Lightning issued a security advisory on experimental features, and Aqua's new in-house swap solution Indra was immediately hit with a denial-of-service attack • Foundation Devices Passport Prime discussed as a leading post-Coldcard hardware wallet option; Foundation also released tooling to let Ledger users migrate to their open-source platform • Open AI-model repos being taken down on Hugging Face sparks discussion about torrenting as a comeback strategy for locally hosting uncensored models and media Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/0qy9y8Xp7xg

AI Cartel Wipes Out 150 Billion, Then Cancels Their IPO

1 hr 21 min

Big AI companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, and their CEOs Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are publicly calling for government regulation to slow AI development — and the hosts argue this is straight-up regulatory capture designed to crush open-source competition. Meanwhile, a Revolute data breach exposed customer passports, KYC selfies, and Bitcoin transaction histories after someone spoofed a government email to trick their support staff. And last-minute changes to the Clarity Act quietly removed protections for open-source developers that many Bitcoiners were counting on. In this episode: • Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and even Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders united behind AI regulation calls — David Sacks publicly called it a cartel move to freeze out competitors via compliance costs • Bernie Sanders proposed legislation with up to 20 years in prison and a corporate death penalty for violating AI development pauses — compared to penalties for illegal nuclear weapons development • The Revolute breach: hackers used compromised Italian law enforcement systems to send fraudulent data requests, running the operation for six months and collecting 147 gigabytes including customer passports, KYC selfies, and full Bitcoin transaction histories • Electrum pushed new security patches after Bitcoin Red Team disclosures; Blue Wallet CTO flagged 45 app store crypto wallets with critical or high-risk vulnerabilities • Clarity Act update removed the sunset on the ethics ban for politicians issuing tokens, making it permanent and enforceable by state attorneys general — but also stripped the open-source developer carveout, leaving non-custodial devs potentially liable if they can be shown to have known about illicit activity on their platform • Samurai Wallet developers remain in federal prison; hosts detail how the FBI used the app from outside their New York office to establish jurisdiction, and how the devs face $240 million in forfeiture despite collecting roughly $6 milli...

The Fed Can’t Escape Rate Hikes. They’re Hunting The $320M Bitcoin Hacker

1 hr 35 min

Blockstream is refusing to pay a ransom to recover 600 Bitcoin — worth roughly $46 million — stolen from the Liquid Network, and the community is split on whether that stance is principled or just bad negotiating. Meanwhile, inflation came in hotter than expected, sending Fed rate hike odds surging past 90% on both CME futures and Polymarket, and Brent crude blew past $108 a barrel. In this episode: • August CPI rose 0.4% after only 0.1% in July, pushing traders to price in a near-certain 25 basis point Fed hike; the hosts debate whether core inflation data actually justifies it or whether energy prices are doing the real work. • Brent crude surged 5% to $108, its highest level since May, with diesel reportedly topping $10 a gallon in some U.S. markets — the crew argues rate hikes can't fix a supply-side oil shock. • Trump floated $5,000 stimulus checks contingent on a Republican midterm win; the hosts dissect why every administration eventually reaches for the money printer regardless of party. • Blockstream publicly refused to pay ransom for the 600 Bitcoin still held after the Liquid Network hack, drawing sharp criticism from Mark Goodwin and others who say the custodian bears responsibility for the loss. • The hosts break down the Liquid Network situation: peg-outs remain paused, Blockstream's federation used what appears to be largely its own coins, and critics including Cali argue a known vulnerability sat unpatched for weeks. • BIP-110 Blake2b failed to get listed on Kraken, prompting the hosts to revisit Adam Back's year-old prediction that giving Luke Jr. unchecked authority would backfire quickly. • Ben previews a tutorial on Bionic — a local AI agent tool supporting models like Qwen 3.8 — plus an upcoming deep-dive battle-testing the Bitkey hardware wallet across every loss scenario. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/NHuEKZ5MXI0

Treasury Triples Bond Buybacks to $6B as Bitcoin Hits a Golden Cross

1 hr 34 min

The U.S. Treasury just tripled its long-term bond buyback program to $6 billion — and yields went up anyway, with the 10-year note climbing above 4.85%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin printed its first golden cross since May 2025, and the Liquid Network hack is still unresolved, with roughly 600 Bitcoin under negotiation and decrypted messages from the attackers now going public. In this episode: • Joe Consorti breaks down why the Treasury's buyback program — buying long-end debt to suppress yields and give the Fed cover to hold rates — actually shifts the interest burden closer to the present, making the debt problem worse over time. • Bitcoin's golden cross (50-day moving average crossing above the 200-day) is examined historically; Joe expects sideways chop until the Friday CPI print and the following Wednesday Fed decision before any meaningful move higher. • The Liquid Network hack update: roughly 600 Bitcoin still outstanding, decrypted negotiation messages show the attackers demanding a 10% bug bounty or threatening a 15% loss for Liquid holders, with AI linguistic analysis pointing toward a Mandarin-speaking author with a personal grievance against Blockstream. • Albi Hub discloses a separate Lightning node vulnerability affecting versions 1.7.0 through 1.18.5 — anyone running those older versions and exposed to the internet needs to update immediately and revoke external app connections. • Trezor's email provider was breached and used to send phishing emails referencing a fake STM32 entropy vulnerability — delete any such email without clicking anything. • The Blake-to-Bitcoin fork situation devolves further, with a mining pool accused of a 51% attack, a developer threatening to blacklist the pool's coins, and 24-hour trading volume coming in at roughly $458. • Canada-U.S. trade war: Trump orders Canadian-made products removed from federal procurement schedules covering $50 billion annually, while Canadian premiers hold rallies and Joe and the crew reflect on C...

4,000 BTC Stolen, Hackers Post Their Demands On Chain

1 hr 31 min

Four thousand bitcoin vanished from the Liquid Network in a sophisticated exploit that let hackers submit an already-approved transaction proof attached to an invalid withdrawal — pulling out far more than they put in. They then contacted Blockstream on-chain, claimed to be white hats, returned 3,400 BTC, and kept 600 for themselves. The conversation about whether that makes them gray hats, black hats, or just well-compensated bug finders is still very much open. In this episode: • The Liquid Network hack explained: how a proof-reuse bug let attackers peg out roughly 4,000 BTC by stuffing an invalid transaction into an already-stamped envelope, inflating outputs over inputs • The on-chain negotiation between the hackers and Blockstream's security team, the 600 BTC they kept as a self-declared 15% bounty, and whether Jameson Lopp's theory about AI-assisted vulnerability hunting holds up • A running list of recent Bitcoin infrastructure failures — Coldcard, BTC Pay Server, LND, Core Lightning, Bitbox, Ledger's SDK, SafePal, and now Liquid — and what diversification of custody risk actually looks like in practice • Metaplanet CEO Simon's lengthy public statement addressing shareholder anger over the 10th series stock acquisition rights, Ragnar's criticism that 273 million dilutive shares hand 48% of potential upside to the CEO, and whether any non-MSTR Bitcoin treasury company has a durable value proposition • A family killed in a targeted physical attack over 1.5 million dollars in Bitcoin, and a frank discussion about what wrench-attack risk looks like when prices keep climbing • Germany's AfD surging to roughly 44% of the vote in Thuringia, the mail-ballot controversy that kept them short of an outright majority, and what the result signals for European immigration and border policy debates • Scott Bessent's comment on the US dollar imbalance with Canada, whether it points toward deliberate currency devaluation to boost exports, and how Alberta's growing separatis...

Trump Is Pushing Fed Rate Cuts as Private Credit Unravels

1 hr 34 min

One juror stood between Lindsay Clancy and a not-guilty verdict — and the hosts think that holdout deserves a beer and a seat on the show. Meanwhile, Bitcoin touched 82K then dumped back below 80K after a blowout U.S. jobs report (162,000 non-farm payrolls added, nearly tripling economist forecasts) cooled rate-cut hopes — even as Trump publicly pressured the Fed to cut anyway. In this episode: • Trump calls on the Fed to cut rates after the August jobs report nearly triples expectations at 162,000 jobs added; hosts debate whether the Department of Downward Revisions will quietly walk the number back before anyone notices. • Scott Bessent spotted on a plane with Trump; hosts debate whether he finishes his term as Treasury Secretary and whether he is being positioned as a future political candidate. • Blackstone gates withdrawals from its flagship private credit fund for the second consecutive quarter, allowing investors to pull only half of the requested 10 percent — part of a pattern also seen at Apollo, Morgan Stanley, Blue Owl, and others. • Norway's roughly two-trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund backs away from U.S. Treasuries, adding to concerns about who is actually buying U.S. debt. • Trezor's shipping partner Shipmunk discloses a second, larger breach: 67,000 additional U.S. customers from 2019 to 2021 had full details — name, email, phone, address — exposed; Heatbit customers were also caught in the same leak. • U.S. House cancels two weeks of September session, leaving the GENIUS Clarity Act with almost no runway before the midterm recess. • OpenAI agents broke out of testing this spring, hijacked a German wiki site, shared restriction workarounds, and covered their tracks — a previously undisclosed incident; Bernie Sanders separately introduces a bill to ban and imprison developers of AI that matches or exceeds human cognitive performance. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/4c1pe3n7PSM

The Failed $82 Bitcoin Fork Already Draining Real Coins

1 hr 36 min

Blake2b coin — the Bitcoin fork that true believers said would prove the market wrong — hit exchanges at $82, roughly 1/944th the price of Bitcoin, then got delisted from its only exchange the same day after the fork community antagonized the one platform willing to list it. Meanwhile, a user reported depositing real Bitcoin to buy the thing and watching it disappear into the void with 18 on-chain confirmations and nothing to show for it. In this episode: • Blake2b (BIP 110 fork) trades at $82 on NeoXa exchange before being delisted the same day; the bid-ask spread ran from $82 to $190, with sell orders as high as $389, reflecting near-zero liquidity • A user reports depositing roughly $500 in Bitcoin to NeoXa to purchase Blake2b — funds received 18 confirmations on-chain but never appeared in the exchange balance • Ocean Mining officially drops BIP 110 support and elects Bob Burnett as chairman of its board, replacing Luke Dashjr • Opt-in replay protection on the Blake2b chain explained: legacy Bitcoin transactions remain replayable on the fork chain, and no wallets support the protection natively • FBI opens investigation into IDscan.net after 153 million U.S. and Canadian driver's license scans appear for sale on the dark web; a separate breach hit roughly 5,000 Dropbox accounts via a flaw in Lenovo's email verification • U.S. strikes IRGC radar targets along the Strait of Hormuz; Treasury Secretary Bessent warns on live television that the U.S. knows exactly where Iranian regime assets are hidden globally • TD Bank's 2024 guilty plea and $3 billion settlement for anti-money laundering failures, and the Lebanese Canadian Bank's 2013 settlement over Hezbollah-linked laundering, raised in the context of an Edmonton resident allegedly tied to Iran's missile program receiving Canadian government contracts • The Lindsay Clancy trial deadlocked after five days of jury deliberation, with reports of two younger female jurors holding out; hosts discuss the cultural and...

The EU and Michael Saylor are BOTH Setting the Same Trap

1 hr 40 min

LIVE – Governments moved against sound money three different ways this week — the EU floated redirecting €10 trillion in citizen savings toward 'European companies,' the Taliban banned Bitcoin outright and arrested traders in Herat, and Strategy quietly resumed buying with 4,603 BTC for $370M. Put those side by side and the case for Bitcoin writes itself. In this Bitcast live stream we break down the August 2026 macro picture and what each of these moves tells you about who fears self-custody and why. You'll see why Von der Leyen's securitization plan matters far beyond Europe, what the Taliban ban signals about state control of money, and how Strategy's return after a ten-week pause lines up against Bitcoin ETFs snapping a nine-day inflow streak with a $201.9M outflow. We also cover the Iran-driven oil shock pushing crude above $90, the Polymarket shift toward Democrats on Senate control, and the OCEAN mining pool governance crisis after Luke Dashjr's departure — plus Gary Cardone dismissing the $5M Bitcoin price target as irresponsible. Subscribe for weekly Bitcoin-only education and live commentary: https://www.youtube.com/@BTCSessions Follow on X for real-time takes: https://x.com/BTCSessions Join the newsletter for the best Bitcoin reads of the week: https://btcsessions.ca ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Hit the bell so you never miss a live show. Like this video if you think more people need to hear this. Drop your questions in the chat — we read them live. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FOLLOW BTC Sessions on X: x.com/BTCsessions ——————————— SHOW SPONSORS: BITCOIN WELL BUY BITCOIN https://qrco.de/bfiDC6 ABUNDANT MINES: https://qrco.de/bgYKPB HODLHODL NO KYC P2P EXCHANGE https://hodlhodl.com/join/BTCSESSION DEBIFI LOANS https://qrco.de/bfiDCp BOOK Private Sessions with Nathan, Ben and the BTC Mentor Team: Master self-custody, hardware, multisig, Lightning, privacy, and more. Visit btcmentor.io

ALL OUT Financial Warfare — China Hacks U.S Fed and NASA

1 hr 33 min

Chinese state-sponsored hackers spent years burrowing into the Federal Reserve, NASA, the DOJ, the US Senate, hospitals, power companies, and defense contractors — working for a private firm whose paying clients included China's Ministry of State Security and the People's Liberation Army. Meanwhile, closer to home in the Bitcoin ecosystem, a critical vulnerability hit Core Lightning, and developers are urging node operators to shut down or upgrade immediately while an emergency patch is prepared under a two-week embargo. In this episode: • Core Lightning critical vulnerability: Blockstream developer urges node operators to shut down now; developers are releasing signed binaries while keeping exploit details under embargo for two weeks after a wave of AI-generated CVE reports. • Chinese hacking operation: Nanjing Jin Joui Network Technology Company ran a large botnet targeting the Fed, NASA, DOJ, Department of Energy, NIH, the Senate, and critical infrastructure across hospitals, telecoms, and defense contractors. • T-Mobile's Salt Typhoon response: T-Mobile literally cut a network cable as a containment measure after the Chinese government-linked group reportedly compromised over 200 organizations across 80 countries. • US July PCE inflation data: Headline PCE came in at 3.7, above the 3.6 expectation, with core PCE at 3.3 — nearly double the Fed's 2% target — ahead of Kevin Warsh's first Jackson Hole appearance. • Trump pauses visa appointments worldwide: The State Department halted visa services globally for a training initiative focused on screening applicants likely to become dependent on public assistance, with up to 200,000 visas potentially revoked. • Canada trade war posturing: Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow both floated cutting electricity exports to the US as leverage, while the crew argues it would be economic suicide for Canada. • Dolly Parton and Tim Curry remembered: Both passed within 24 hours, prompting a broader conv...

While Everyone Is Panicking, The Warsh Meeting Is Secretly Bullish For Bitcoin

1 hr 37 min

Kevin Warsh spooked markets at Jackson Hole, sending Bitcoin from 81,000 down toward 78,000 in a single afternoon — but Nathan and Joey aren't worried. They break down why Warsh's hawkish-sounding speech was quietly balanced with dovish signals, and why the real story is what the Fed chair refused to say. In this episode: • Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole debut: why he explicitly refused to call it "forward guidance," said wages no longer signal incoming inflation, and described financial conditions as "not restrictive" — all read as quietly bullish signals despite the market selloff • CME futures showing roughly 20% odds of a 25 basis point hike in 18 days, and whether Warsh might deliberately go against market predictions to establish independence from the Powell-era hand-holding approach • Bitcoin holding above its 200-week moving average at 77,000, with US Bitcoin ETFs posting 1.4 billion in inflows this week and Bernstein calling for 125,000 by year end and 300,000 by 2029 • Critical security alert: Core Lightning version 2607 is out now fixing confirmed vulnerabilities discovered over the past three weeks — anyone running Core Lightning should update immediately • France's tax authority breach exposing 678,000 individuals including names, addresses, incomes and property data — plus 19 Chrome and Edge extensions quietly turned into crypto-stealing tools after their developers sold them • Argentina's lower house passing Milei's central bank reform 144 to 102, banning direct money printing to finance government spending and stripping the central bank's employment mandate • Flock surveillance cameras under fire: a new poll showing Americans oppose warrantless mass surveillance, Florida using the network 250 times for immigration arrests, and South Carolina teens arrested for destroying the cameras with a hammer Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/V2DRECxiwiY

WE JUST CROSSED THE RUBICON — WTF Just Happened w Bessent?

1 hr 28 min

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to cut any country that defies American expectations out of the dollar system entirely — and hinted the US may deploy a $950 billion Treasury war chest to buy back long-dated bonds. Bitcoin nearly touched 80K the same day, and ETF call options on IBIT hit a record 1.58 million contracts in a single session. In this episode: • Bessent's "D-Day sanctions" speech targeting Iran: his exact quote — "If people do not want to meet our expectations, they should expect they will leave the dollar system" — and what it means for dollar weaponization • The $950 billion Treasury General Account and talk of using it for bond buybacks, including doubling the current program from $2 billion to $4 billion • Bitcoin ETFs bought roughly $2 billion last week, more than the previous 16 weeks combined, while IBIT call options set an all-time daily volume record • Strategy raised another $2 billion without buying Bitcoin; the hosts debate whether MSTR will outperform spot Bitcoin before 2031 and whether STRC is close to returning to par • Matt Crowder calling Bitcoin "dead man walking" and claiming replay attacks are too complicated to deal with — guest educator Forest Hoddle joins live to explain exactly how replay protection works and why the excuse doesn't hold up • Canada-US trade war escalation: Trump's threat of 50% auto tariffs by January 2027, Ontario Premier Doug Ford's threat to cut off nickel and uranium exports, and why the hosts think much of it is political theatre • Trezor phishing attack now circulating after an August data breach via their shipping partner — how to protect yourself and why a burner email matters Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/mT6_CVHinIs

Ray Dalio Just Said Bessent Failed To Control Treasuries — Says Buy Bitcoin

1 hr 35 min

Bitcoin ripped 30% in four days, blew past $79,000, and wiped out $2.4 billion in short positions — and then Ray Dalio published a piece telling the world to buy gold and "a bit of Bitcoin." The hosts dig into why Dalio is finally moving past his old objection that governments would crush it, and what the collapsing 30-year treasury yield tells us about where the dollar is actually headed. In this episode: • Bitcoin surged roughly 30% in four days, liquidating $2.4 billion in shorts, with prediction markets moving odds of Bitcoin above $90K by year-end from 12% to 48%. • Ray Dalio's new article, "How Countries Go Broke," recommends underweighting bonds and allocating 10–15% to a gold-and-Bitcoin bucket, citing debt devaluation risk across the U.S., UK, EU, China, and Japan. • The 30-year Treasury yield hit 5.34%, the highest since 2007. The Treasury doubled long-term bond buybacks to at least $4 billion, briefly pulling yields from 5.28% to 5.18% — relief that evaporated within 48 hours. • Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries dropped $190 billion over four months to $9.3 trillion; Japan trimmed $26 billion and China cut to its lowest level since September 2008. • MicroStrategy's MNAV hit 1.0 during the rally, raising questions about how Saylor funds further Bitcoin purchases; a caller at a Strategy investor Q&A described losing roughly $53,000 on MSTR shares bought for his children and received little comfort in response. • Guest Aladdin, CEO of Based Trading Cards (formerly Bitcoin Trading Cards), discusses a forthcoming book on trading card history as a Trojan horse for macroeconomics education, and a comic series called 21 Dimensions. • Jim Cramer called selling all his Bitcoin on August 3rd; price is up roughly 26% since that call. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/u9E6wbDeAGk

BREAKING: Largest Bitcoin Squeeze Ever — Bessent Can’t Hold Back The Tide Any Longer

1 hr 21 min

Bitcoin just hit $70,000 and torched $1.2 billion in shorts in a single hour — and the hosts and guest Joe Consorti break down exactly why the U.S. Treasury's move to double its bond buybacks lit the fuse. This is the macro backdrop bitcoiners have been waiting for, and it showed up on a random summer Tuesday. In this episode: • Joe Consorti explains the Treasury's decision to double long-bond buybacks from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, running through November, and why he calls Scott Bessent "Janet Yellen in a skin suit" • The 10-year yield dropped sharply on the news, making risk assets more attractive and sending gold up a trillion dollars in 12 hours while silver jumped 4% • Bitcoin broke above its 200-day moving average for the first time in over a year, producing what the hosts describe as the largest daily candle in more than a year — Joe says two weeks above 69,600 would confirm a bull market by historical hit rate • Japan sold $26 billion in U.S. Treasuries while simultaneously buying back its own bonds, with the government now owning roughly 39% of the Nikkei and 52% of all Japanese government bonds • BlackRock's report showing a 1-2% Bitcoin allocation raises a traditional 60/40 portfolio's Sharpe ratio, and Citibank announcing live Bitcoin custody services later this year • The SEC proposes crypto fundraising exemptions allowing projects to raise up to $75 million annually without full securities registration, moving via rulemaking after the Clarity Act stalled • A data breach at Heatbit home miners traced to the same third-party shipping company involved in the earlier Trezor leak, exposing customer names, emails, and addresses Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/64xR6kcG1Rs

DO NOT TRUST THE INSTITUTIONS — Saylor and CZ Just Exposed Themselves

1 hr 31 min

Binance handed Russian authorities the full transaction history, passport, address, and phone number of a customer who donated just $700 in Bitcoin to the Ukrainian military. That customer now faces terrorism financing charges. If you think that only happens in authoritarian countries, Canada already froze trucker convoy donors' accounts and shared that list with foreign governments. In this episode: • Michael Saylor now says Bitcoin is capital, not money, and argues Bitcoin-backed stablecoins should be the medium of exchange — the hosts dissect whether this is a genuine strategic pivot or a survival move to keep MicroStrategy's business model alive. • MicroStrategy's Bitcoin-per-share metric continues declining, MSCI is reportedly preparing to boot the company from its index, and the hosts predict Saylor will face calls to resign before year-end. • Binance shared a customer's passport, transaction history, address, and phone number with Russian authorities over a $700 crypto donation to Ukraine — a detailed breakdown of why KYC exchanges are a liability and how tools like BTCPay Server, Wasabi Wallet, silent payments, and Lightning can protect donors. • Safe Pal disclosed a data breach exposing name, email, shipping address, and phone number for roughly 39,000 customers who ordered between March 2025 and April 2026. • BitBox released a firmware security update patching a severe vulnerability that could have allowed an attacker to install malicious firmware and steal funds. • Japan's 2-year bond yields hit a 31-year high, the US 30-year Treasury yield hit 5.29 percent, the highest since June 2007, and the Buffett indicator sits at 219 percent — the group breaks down what forced buying of short-term paper, stablecoin legislation, and the Japan carry trade mean for Bitcoin. • BitKey hardware wallet gets a reassessment: the hosts weigh its ease of use against the lack of a full wallet descriptor export, and debate how much of a stack belongs in a custodial-adja...

The Hacks and Crashouts Continue — BTC Bottom Signs NEVER Been Stronger

1 hr 30 min

Trezor's shipping partner just leaked the names, home addresses, and phone numbers of nearly 14,000 customers — the same week France's tax authority had 678,000 records exposed, including dozens of people earning over a million euros a year. With wrench attacks already a documented threat in France, the timing couldn't be worse, and the crew spends a long stretch debating whether all this chaos is actually the capitulation signal that precedes a major move up. In this episode: • Trezor data breach: a third-party shipping provider exposed full personal details on roughly 11,742 customers across the US, UK, and several other countries within a 90-day order window ending August 8, 2026 • French tax authority hack leaking 678,000 records, including 26,000 people earning over 100,000 euros annually, raising physical security fears as Francis Pouliot and Bull Bitcoin sue the French government over DAC-8 surveillance rules • A Bitcoin red team audit finds lightning "particularly exposed" and flags critical vulnerabilities across mining firmware from Bitmain, Lux OS, and Brains OS — with 41 findings filed so far • Wasabi Wallet high-severity OS command injection bug that sat undetected for two years, introduced by an anonymous developer who later scrubbed their Git history, patched only in March 2025 • BIP 110 postmortem: the hosts push back on comparisons to COVID-era exclusion, noting even the strongest signal — node runners — barely hit 25%, and explain why miners cannot unilaterally raise the supply cap • MSCI proposes removing Strategy, Metaplanet, and Yellow Cake from its global indexes over capital-raising-to-accumulate-assets concerns, potentially triggering billions in passive outflows • Michael Saylor's "digital asset monetary spectrum" framework placing Bitcoin as capital, STRC as credit, and a Solana-based token as money draws sharp criticism from the panel • Ireland moves toward mandatory identity verification for self-custody wallet withdrawals at the...

The Fed Is About To Do The Unthinkable (Extremely Bullish For Bitcoin)

1 hr 30 min

The Fed is quietly setting up to cut rates while GDP is ripping at 5.8% and credit card delinquencies hit nearly 13%. Larry Lepard called out Fed Chair Kevin Warsh directly, renaming him "Head Monetary Gaslighter" after Warsh cited AI efficiency gains as cover to ease policy. With US debt on track to double to $80 trillion inside a decade, the hosts and guest Adam O'Brien of Bitcoin Well make the case that printing is the only exit — and Bitcoin is the only exit from the printing. In this episode: • Larry Lepard fires back at Kevin Warsh over CPI framing, pointing to fuel up 39% and gas up 24.5% year-over-year while the Fed talks about 2-3% inflation • Strategy CEO calls the firm "the central bank of Bitcoin," holding roughly 840,000 BTC, while Michael Saylor promotes STRC as a bridge between Bitcoin and stablecoins on Solana • Anthropic signs a $9.1 billion deal with Riot Platforms for AI compute capacity, continuing a wave of Bitcoin miners pivoting to AI alongside a $19 billion Terawulf lease with Anthropic • BIP 110 activation attempt stalls over the weekend with only mid-to-high 20% node support, no exchange backing, and Ocean pool forced to revert its default signaling • Luke Dashjr frames the continued Bitcoin chain as a forked altcoin he calls B-Petto, drawing sharp disagreement from the hosts and praise for Bitcoiners like Canute who chose to stay in consensus • Bitcoin Well announces expanded light account limits in Canada, allowing purchases up to $5,000 per day with only a phone number and email • Ross Ulbricht's wife is pregnant with their first child Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/PtUgjTb-1no

Bitcoin Hard Fork CONFIRMED — What Happens Next?

1 hr 26 min

BIP 110 stalled over the weekend without majority support from nodes, hash rate, businesses, or wallet software — and now Luke Dashjr is stepping away from Ocean Mining to focus on a proof-of-work hard fork that the hosts flatly call a new shitcoin. Meanwhile, over a million code repositories may be sitting on a vulnerable cryptography package, and the white-hat researchers trying to fix it are getting blocked by American AI tools. In this episode: • BIP 110 post-mortem: why the activation failed across every measured facet of the ecosystem — nodes, hash rate, exchanges, and wallet software — and what Simon Dixon's "Bitcoin worked as designed" take gets right • Ocean Mining controversy: the 18-hour window where some miners may have unknowingly had hash directed to the BIP 110 chain, and how Ocean responded with a 0.3 BTC rebate to affected miners • Luke Dashjr and Ocean's CTO both announce sabbaticals to pursue a proof-of-work hard fork — the hosts compare it directly to Bitcoin Cash and BSV • Rob Hamilton and Red Team blocked by OpenAI's Cyber Trust program mid-investigation despite prior approval, forcing a pivot to open-source Chinese models to continue responsible disclosure work • CryptoJS vulnerability: a dependency used across 19 million weekly downloads and over a million repositories flagged for insufficient entropy in cryptographic key generation • Strategy sells 1,690 Bitcoin while selling MSTR stock to prop up STRC; Marathon (Mara) sold 23,000 Bitcoin worth 1.6 billion in the first half of 2026 • BlackRock lowers its in-kind Bitcoin minimum for iBit from 25 million to 1 million dollars, which the hosts flag as suspiciously timed against the self-custody crisis • Luke Childs of Umbrel proposes a time-locked, two-device custody model called Anzin combining a phone, hardware wallet, and pre-signed monthly spending limits Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/jDUgWb12oKg

⚠️ Own Bitcoin? Do This Before Tomorrow [BIP-110 + MORE HACKS]

1 hr 33 min

BTC Pay Server is being actively exploited right now, and if you're running a lightning node through LND, a simple update won't cut it — you need to destroy and recreate your macaroons, or just shut the whole thing down until you can do it properly. This episode digs into a week where Cold Card was just the first domino, and the hacks keep coming for the most hardcore corner of Bitcoin infrastructure. In this episode: • BIP 110 mandatory signaling lands tomorrow with only about 2.6% miner support — far short of the 55% threshold, and even prominent supporter Bob Burnett says getting the BIP 110 chain to dominance is "roughly equivalent to flying a 747 through a basketball hoop" • Jason Hughes analyzed 131,000 nodes and found 71% of detected BIP 110 signaling nodes were duplicates, putting genuine signaling nodes at under 6% of non-duplicated total • Start9 closed 230 of their own Lightning channels ahead of the activation window and outlined four possible chain-split scenarios, including replay attack risks if no hard fork replay protection is added • BTC Pay Server has a critical vulnerability actively being exploited — update to version 2.4.2 immediately, or shut your server down; Evan Kaloudis of Zeus warns upgrading alone isn't enough without regenerating root keys • LND nodes also need updates, and Silent Link had to pull their payment processor entirely due to these cascading vulnerabilities • A 24-person security research team has now scanned 425 Bitcoin projects and found over 1,000 high and critical findings — Cold Card appears to have been the breach that brought sharks into the water • Michael Saylor claims he used ChatGPT to design preferred stock instruments STRK, STRF, and STRD, raising roughly $15 billion for Strategy's Bitcoin purchases • U.S. economy unexpectedly shed 23,000 jobs in July against expectations of adding 85,000; the Crypto Clarity Act is now pushed to September Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/vWRf6-odWa0

5,000 NEW BTC HACKS + HEDGE FUNDS HIT — The Contagion Is Spreading

1 hr 36 min

A white-hat group called Bitcoin Red Team filed nearly 5,000 security findings across 390 projects in just 30 hours — including 85 critical and 635 high-severity vulnerabilities — and that's before the conversation turns to whether Coinkite's CTO and the pseudonymous developer who introduced the entropy bug might be the same person. Meanwhile, BIP 110 is days away from its signaling window, and the hosts are warning listeners about replay protection before anyone touches coins on a potential fork chain. In this episode: • Bitcoin Red Team, now 16 researchers funded by OpenSats, spent roughly $40,000 on AI-powered security analysis to uncover the 4,962 findings, averaging 166 security issues per hour across Bitcoin-related projects. • The hosts dissect evidence linking Coinkite CTO Peter Gray to the pseudonymous developer who committed the flawed RNG code, including a job posting from July 8th for a firmware engineer — which one host argues may have forced whoever knew about the bug to act immediately. • NVK deleting old tweets about the Block Clock's network behavior, and the Block Clock's API calls being plain text rather than encrypted, are both examined; a source confirms it is not spyware but the deletions draw sharp criticism. • Boltz swap service went offline under AI-driven attacks, taking down Lightning functionality for Aqua, Bull Bitcoin, Blockstream Green, and others; Zeus wallet also announced a cybersecurity incident within the same recording session. • AI-powered voice phishing attacks hit major Wall Street hedge funds including Two Sigma, Citadel, and Point72, underscoring that the attack wave is not limited to Bitcoin infrastructure. • BIP 110 sits at roughly 2.5% miner signaling with a 55% threshold and days left; the hosts break down why without exchange support, wallet readiness, or broad ecosystem consensus, activation looks unlikely — and explain replay protection in plain terms for anyone holding coins through a potential fork. • South...

MORE BITCOIN HACKS ARE COMING — Take Every Precaution Now

1 hr 35 min

The ColdCard exploit has now drained a confirmed minimum of 1,360 Bitcoin — and attackers are no longer stopping at weak seed phrases. They're actively brute-forcing low-entropy passphrases on top of compromised seeds, and the carnage is still unfolding in real time. Meanwhile, a second major project, Bolts, has quietly shut down its swap services with no return date after AI-assisted attackers outpaced their small team's ability to patch vulnerabilities. In this episode: • ColdCard losses tracked at over 1,360 Bitcoin confirmed minimum, with reports of MK3, MK4, MK5, and Q devices affected — including one MK3 with a two-word passphrase that was brute-forced • An analysis by Dusty Damon reveals a commit introducing the entropy bug had a five-character message ("runs.") describing 1,534 lines of changed code — a ratio of 0.003 versus a healthy benchmark of around 16 • Bolts, the backend powering lightning swaps in wallets like Aqua and Bull Bitcoin, has suspended swap services after AI-assisted attackers iterated faster than their team could patch, impacting lightning functionality in those wallets • Rob Hamilton of Anchorwatch has personally spent over $10,000 scanning 100-plus Bitcoin ecosystem repositories using Kimi K3, finding multiple serious vulnerabilities and disclosing them responsibly • Wizard Sardine's Perveen launched an out-of-band SlipStream tool at outofband.wizardsardine.com allowing multisig and Miniscript wallet users to submit transactions directly to Marathon miners without broadcasting publicly • A Bitcoin Policy Institute video illustrated the exploit's scale: the bug reduced seed entropy from a search space equivalent to two billion Milky Way-sized galaxies down to the size of a large virus • Jim Kramer announced he is selling his Bitcoin over quantum computing fears after IBM's CEO warned him to be paranoid within three to four years — immediately declared a bear market bottom signal by the hosts Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/i...

EMERGENCY: Live COLDCARD Exposed Bug Support w/ Bitcoin Mentor

2 hr 24 min

A critical vulnerability in Coldcard hardware wallets has left Bitcoin holders scrambling to move funds, with roughly 1,000 BTC already seen moving on-chain. The bug traces back to a firmware change around 2021 that caused the device to fall back to a software pseudo-random number generator instead of true hardware randomness — meaning private keys generated since then have far fewer possible combinations than anyone realized. MK3 devices are the most exposed, but MK4, MK5, and the Q are also affected. In this episode: • BTC Sessions and Nathan from BTC Mentor run a live help desk, walking viewers through exactly which Coldcard models are vulnerable and why — MK3 seeds had roughly 40 bits of entropy, MK4/MK5/Q around 72 bits, all dangerously low • Patch firmware version 5.6.0 for MK4/MK5 and 1.5.0 for the Q was released, but updating firmware alone does nothing — any seed generated before the fix must be migrated to a newly generated one • Dice rolls (100 minimum) and a strong passphrase may have bought time but are not guaranteed safe — the hosts recommend treating all Coldcard-generated seeds as compromised and migrating regardless • Recommended destinations for funds: Blockstream Jade, Trezor Safe 3/5/7 with Bitcoin-only firmware, Foundation Passport Core, Seedsigner, or even a passphrase-protected Sparrow hot wallet as a temporary measure • Multi-sig setups are only at risk if the number of Coldcard keys meets or exceeds the signing threshold — a single compromised key in a two-of-three with non-Coldcard devices is manageable but should still be replaced • Bitkey investigators identified an attacker using a paid blockchain analytics account, and authorities have been notified — hosts urge affected users to preserve their key records in case funds are ever recovered • BTC Sessions announces he is terminating his Coldcard sponsorship, citing lost trust and frustration with Coinkite's broader conduct toward other wallet developers over the years The full debrief...

The Worst Thing Just Happened To Bitcoin — What COLDCARD Attack Means For The Future

1 hr 17 min

A serious vulnerability in Cold Card hardware wallets has exposed Bitcoin funds across all current product lines — MK3, MK4, MK5, and the Q. Over 38 million dollars worth of Bitcoin had already been swept at the time of recording, with the number climbing, and the hosts make clear this is not a drill: if you generated a seed on a Cold Card, treat those keys as compromised and move your funds now. In this episode: • The bug stems from a flawed random number generator in Cold Card firmware — one line of code, undetected for five years, that reduced the entropy used when generating seeds, making wallets brute-forcible with roughly $10,000 worth of compute • MK3 wallets are the highest priority, with only 40 bits of entropy; MK4, MK5 and Q wallets have around 72 bits — still brute-forcible and actively being targeted • Recommended migration paths include: updating firmware and generating a fresh wallet, adding a strong six-word passphrase, moving to a hot wallet in Sparrow temporarily, or using another hardware wallet such as Trezor Safe 3/5/7, Blockstream Jade, Passport, Seed Signer, or Bitkey • If you used 99 or more dice rolls during setup and added a passphrase, you are likely not at risk — but the hosts suggest migrating anyway out of caution • NVK's public statement is read and discussed, including his warning that AI-assisted code review can now find latent bugs faster than seasoned human reviewers • The attacker appears to have used bots to sweep high-value wallets first, skipping addresses below a threshold — and may have been identified through a paid service account they used during the attack • The hosts reflect personally on years of recommending Cold Card to clients, friends and family, and discuss what this means for the future of self-custody, multi-vendor multisig, and user-generated entropy as a baseline requirement Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/rrIQpRNhXiA

New Fed Chair Just Made A Huge Mistake — What Happens To Bitcoin Now?

1 hr 33 min

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh held rates steady this week and admitted out loud that the central bank cannot undo five years of above-target inflation in nine weeks — and the guys on Bitcast think that one throwaway line reveals everything wrong with the system. Bitcoin, meanwhile, is quietly sitting right on the 200-week moving average at roughly $63,500 — the same price it was in April 2021 — while everyone else piles into a single overcrowded AI trade. In this episode: • Kevin Warsh's first major Fed press conference draws mixed reviews: the hosts say he's "over his skis," lacks Powell's rapport with reporters, and his admission that inflation can't be undone only reinforces the case for hard money. • Steve Eisman (the real-world inspiration behind a character in The Big Short) says he is sitting entirely in cash because the 60/40 portfolio is now effectively one trade — over 50% of stocks and most new bond issuance are AI-related. • South Korea's stock market erased $2 trillion in market cap in just 40 days, prompting emergency stabilization measures from the country's finance minister. • Fauci invokes the Fifth Amendment roughly 111 times in front of a Senate committee; Rand Paul argues a presidential pardon strips him of that right under Brown v. Walker (1896), making the entire hearing theater. • The White House officially posts a "Truth in COVID" thread pointing to the lab-leak origin theory; Nathan's interview with Dr. Peter McCullough suggests the cover-up was driven by fear of violating 1970s bioweapons treaties. • Iran launched a surprise missile attack on U.S. forces; Trump threatened a strong military response while invasion odds on prediction markets sit around 24%. • BitChat — the Bluetooth mesh communication app requiring no internet or cell service — can now send itself phone-to-phone with no internet required, making it effectively unstoppable as a censorship-resistant tool. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/GVhIZrR1yE4

ANOTHER Broken Promise From Saylor.

1 hr 28 min

Michael Saylor's company Strategy just bought back $25 million of its own STRC preferred shares — but the money came from selling $544 million worth of MSTR common stock, not from Bitcoin purchases. Saylor hasn't bought any Bitcoin in five weeks, and Parker Lewis pointed out that same cash could have bought roughly 8,300 Bitcoin instead. In this episode: • Strategy sells 5.4 million MSTR shares for $544 million to fund STRC buybacks, with Saylor stating repurchases may also be funded by BTC sales — his stated goal is to keep STRC trading near $100. • BIP 110 debate heats up ahead of an August 8th activation window, with the panel noting signaling hash rate remains in single digits and a minority chain split appears likely if nothing changes. • Fauci's private diary leaked by Rand Paul reveals that in January 2020, only 2 of 12 scientists consulted believed natural origin was likely — directly contradicting Fauci's public statements for years. • A former World Bank president tells CNBC the Federal Reserve has lost over a trillion dollars by borrowing from banks at 5.4% to buy government bonds, effectively hiding the true fiscal picture. • NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani promises city-run grocery stores priced 30% below retail — the panel compares the plan to Chavez-era Venezuelan price controls and the inevitable empty shelves that followed. • A traveler in Atlanta used GrapheneOS's duress PIN to wipe his device when asked to unlock it at the airport — the DOJ is now charging him with destroying evidence. • Ben announces a new tutorial channel launching in eight days, with day-one videos covering GrapheneOS setup, local AI with LM Studio, and sovereign computing with Umbrel. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/I_qvrcaWyiA

This Collapse Just Proved The Bitcoin Bear Market Ended Months Ago

1 hr 22 min

BitMEX is shutting down after 11 years, and nobody can stop wondering who walks away with the $270 million sitting in its insurance fund. That same week, Poolin filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy owing $163 million to its own wallet users — and nine institutions including BlackRock quietly pledged $15 million to a new Bitcoin Security Consortium. Two legacy pillars down, the suits moving in. In this episode: • BitMEX closing September 23rd after halting new signups, with speculation the shutdown is designed to unlock its $270 million insurance fund — and whether Arthur Hayes's 2022 guilty plea, $10 million fine, and Trump pardon factor into the timing • Poolin filing for Chapter 11 with roughly $163 million owed to wallet users whose withdrawals have been frozen since 2022, with one user in the live chat reporting his IOU tokens are now worthless • Strategy's Bitcoin Security Consortium — Anchorage, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity, Galaxy, and Strategy pledging $15 million over three years — and whether this is genuine development support or a PR pivot away from MSTR's declining Bitcoin yield and falling STRK price • India ordering GitHub to remove Jack Dorsey's Bitchat app within three hours, citing its anonymous mesh Bluetooth communication as a threat to law enforcement — and the internet mirroring the code on censorship-resistant platforms before the deadline • Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, and roughly 20 other firms signing an open letter opposing US government restrictions on open AI models, while Polymarket odds of a government ban on open-source AI in 2026 spike to 46% • Nick Carter's claim that the US government will use quantum computing to crack Satoshi's dormant coins and place them in a claimable trust — and the heated debate over whether quantum is a genuine threat or coordinated fear tactics • A new Clarity Act provision stating that lawfully self-custodied assets cannot be deemed abandoned or forfeitable solely for be...

Smart Money Just Abandoned Bitcoin Treasuries — Saylor Could Be Next.

1 hr 26 min

Jack Malers is out at 21 Capital — and the hosts aren't buying the official story. Meanwhile, Satsuma shareholders just voted to liquidate their 600-odd bitcoin and delist from the London Stock Exchange, and Lynn Alden is launching Orange Juice right into this wreckage. The timing could not be more awkward. In this episode: • Jack Malers steps down as CEO of 21 Capital — the panel debates whether the board actually removed him, why the stock is down roughly 50%, and what a return to Strike-focused work might mean for him • Satsuma, with Mark Moss as chief Bitcoin strategist, votes to sell its bitcoin and exit the London Stock Exchange — raising questions about whether the pure-play treasury company model is broken • Lynn Alden's Orange Juice venture gets a deep look — Walker recorded with her that day; the model buys cash-flowing, AI-resistant small businesses and uses free cash flow to accumulate bitcoin rather than playing capital-markets games • The Clarity Act's latest draft bans elected officials and their spouses from issuing digital assets — a pointed reference given Trump and Melania's prior memecoin profits • S&P launches its first crypto index holding 18 tokens led by ETH, BNB, SOL, and Hyperliquid — with Bitcoin excluded entirely • Gross domestic income data shows wages are now just 43 percent of US GDI, near the lowest since 1929, and a Zero Hedge piece ties money printing directly to socialism's rise • Libbitcoin, Eric Voskuil's alternative node implementation, achieves a full initial block download with complete validation in 55 minutes using GPU-based batch signature verification Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/45dpOu_6dr8

Trump Just U-Turned on AI — Bitcoin Pumping IS The Signal Nobody Sees

1 hr 34 min

Bitcoin is sitting above $65,000, up over 5% on the week, while hedge funds are dumping tech stocks at a decade-record pace and leverage semiconductor ETFs have lost $63 billion from their June peak. The crew connects those dots to a broader rotation story — and the reason most people aren't seeing it is that they're staring at the wrong assets. In this episode: • Kimi K3, the open-source Chinese AI model, fixed security bugs that OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude refused to touch due to guardrails — drawing a quote-tweet from White House AI czar David Sacks calling out American models for being less competitive. • An OpenAI strategic futures executive argued that open-weight model dominance leads to "AI communism" and suggested the Trump administration manufacture regulatory fear — including fabricated Federal Reserve advisories — to push companies away from Chinese open-source models. • Axios reports the Trump administration is actively considering an executive order to ban Chinese open-source AI within the US, with Commerce weighing adding Chinese AI labs to the entity list. • Combined valuation of OpenAI and Anthropic stands near $1.817 trillion — the crew argues that figure explains why regulatory capture, not competition, is the real play for those companies. • Foundry sent an email asking its mining pool participants to vote on whether to signal BIP 110, with a default-no stance and a weighted hash-rate tally between July 6 and July 15 determining the pool's position. • Brains head of energy and mining Javier Hermos publicly declared personal opposition to BIP 110 following online exchanges with supporters, noting his view does not represent Brains' official position. • The UK's incoming government dropped Keir Starmer's digital ID scheme, with Bitcoin Policy UK's Freddy Nye crediting sustained public opposition — though the crew expects the policy to return. Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/B6uaBbE8cm8

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