"Teaching Bitcoin to a teenager requires a balanced approach that combines technical detail with engaging content."

I've given my nephew two short physical books I had about Bitcoin (I'm more of an Audible guy myself):

• "The Bitcoin Handbook" by Anil Patel (the website offers a free PDF download of the book)
• "Why Buy Bitcoin" by Andy Edstrom

But he wants more. So I started looking at what I could provide him that would be good while engaging for a teenager. Here is what I'm sharing with him. I'll let you know what he thought about the material once he goes through it 😁

The Bitcoin Course

The Bitcoin Course by Anil Patel is a no brainer. Anil recently made the course free (it used to cost $99) and not only he did that but he went through the extra step of reimbursing the $99 to anyone who had bought it in the past.

Introduction to Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulos

This is a YouTube playlist with a compilation of 49 mostly short videos explaining the different concepts about Bitcoin. Some run 20 to 30 minutes but the majority are short.

Material for the future

Yes, I'm omitting a lot of good material but I just want him to get started. If he is still interested then we can go into books like The Bitcoin Standard but let's first get started with videos. This is a list targeted at teenagers after all.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

ck

"Home cooking + Bitcoin". I couldn't agree with him more.

You can follow ck here.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

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Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"I've been thinking about what's the best strategy for you if you're going to be saving in Bitcoin little by little and I think you need to download a new wallet."

Back in Christmas I gave my nephew his first sats and set him up with a Mutiny wallet to receive them. Today, I had him migrate from Mutiny to Phoenix, with all the troubles associated, so that he can buy extra liquidity, at least for a year.

The problem

Last December I sent my nephew his first 100,000 sats. He setup a Mutiny wallet and after the channel setup fee, he ended up with around 95,000 sats.

He is curious about Bitcoin and yesterday he asked me if I could help him turn into Bitcoin some cash that his grandparents had sent him. The idea seemed simple, my sister gives me the cash and I send him the equivalent amount in sats.

But...he only had 64,000 sats of inbound liquidity. I tried sending him 60,000 sats with no luck.

He had an inbound liquidity problem. It's already hard to find people who will pay you in Bitcoin for mowing the lawn. Let's not make it even more difficult with Lightning channel management.

So I decided to move him over to Phoenix so that he could buy liquidity.

The move

The move was cumbersome and I hope he doesn't need to do something similar again:

1. Close the Lightning channel on Mutiny and pay the closing fees
   • The 95,000 sats now sit on-chain and can't be sent to Phoenix
2. Download Phoenix
3. Send me a Lightning invoice from Phoenix
4. I send him a lump sum of sats from my Mutiny wallet to his new Phoenix wallet
   • The money from the grandparents
   • 95,000 sats to match what he has on-chain at his Mutiny wallet
   • Some extra to cover for the Lightning channel setup fee and to buy extra inbound liquidity
5. He then pays approximately around 15,000 sats to add 1 million sats of inbound liquidity
6. He sends me the 95,000 sats from his Mutiny wallet to an on-chain address on my Mutiny wallet
   • I'm not thrilled, but this is the price of orange pilling a relative

The silver lining

The silver lining is that my nephew now wants to learn about on-chain and Lightning, how they work and how they're different.

I see a Bitcoiner in the making 😁

In summary:

Mutiny is a good wallet for established Bitcoiners and Nostr users. For a new Bitcoiner getting started, Phoenix is the way to go.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Karnage

Karnage is the #1 Nostr UI designer. If you're using Nostr today, you're using his (or her) designs.

You can follow Karnage here.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

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Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"If the government can print unlimited amounts of money out of thin air, why do they collect taxes? The real problem is that you pay high taxes only to uphold the illusion that you are funding the government, which you are not. The government is funded by money printing."

— President Nayib Bukele

The TARP bailout of 2008 was very controversial, with many people strongly opposing to it. The total value of the program was $700 billion dollars. At the time it was seen as an ungodly amount of money.

Now we add 1,000 billion dollars to the national debt every 100 days.

From 16 years a trillion to 100 days a trillion

The chart below shows how many years it took to add the next trillion to the national debt.

The first trillion took longer than the 16 years on the chart. Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve data only starts on January 1, 1966 and at that point the national debt was 320,999 million USD.

The debt crossed the first trillion during the 3rd quarter of 1981.

Since then, the US government has been racking debt

We're heading towards 4 trillion dollars of new debt per year. Soon the whole annual budget will be paid by debt.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Anil

Anil just made all his Bitcoin educational material free. And he reimbursed the money to all the people who had previously paid him for the material!

You can follow him here and find his courses here.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"Muun is fine in a low fee environment, but there could be some serious pain once fees go up."

— MCBitcoin

Over a year ago, I loaded the Muun wallet into my kids phones and started paying them their weekly allowance in Bitcoin. Today, I've switched their savings in their phones to Phoenix.

Muun was a good wallet to get the kids started

My kids have been able to use Muun regularly and that is a testament to Muun's UX. They would send me invoices every Sunday or pay my invoices when they needed to send me money.

I regularly tell them that what matters is how much Bitcoin they have and shouldn't worry about the ups and downs of the price in US dollars, but they are kids after all, and they surely did keep track of their savings in US dollars and Muun made that easy as well.

But things got out of control when on-chain fees skyrocketed. I was paying 6,000 sats to send 60,000 sats 😖

I started holding their allowance to pay multiple weeks at once but that's not right. What message am I sending my kids if I pay them with money that is hard and expensive to use?

So now that the fees are back to reasonable numbers, I've moved their savings to Phoenix.

Will Phoenix do better in a high fee environment? We'll see. I'll be sure to report back here.

Time to consolidate and move your Bitcoin around

Once fees go up again, I don't think we will ever see fees as low as they are now. So take the opportunity to consolidate UTXOs, open up new Lightning channels and move things around.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

MCBitcoin

MCBitcoin is someone who should have way more followers.

You can follow him here

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

Every 210,000 blocks, the Bitcoin network cuts in half the number of Bitcoin issued to miners as a reward for mining the next block.

As I write this, we're now at height 828,475, so we're roughly 11,500 blocks, or 80 days, away from the next halving.

What will the halving do?

The halving itself is very straight forward. The reward will go down from 6.25 to 3.125 Bitcoin.

A lot has changed since the first halving, when the network reduced the reward from 50 to 25 Bitcoin.

The first halving happened on November 28, 2012. The Bitcoin price was $12.35 USD and 75% of Bitcoin had been mined already. Only cyberpunks and people buying and selling on the Silk Road market were using Bitcoin at the time.

Today, the price is around $43,000 USD, 96.875% of Bitcoin will be mined by block 840,000 and users include states (El Salvador), corporations (MicroStrategy, Tether Holdings) and Wall Street (ETFs and trusts).

The demand for Bitcoin is rising with the recent launch of ETFs in the United States. In less than a month, the newly launched ETFs have accumulated 170,082 Bitcoin. That's no small figure for less than a month.

Once the halving occurs, it will take 3.2 years for the Bitcoin network to issue the same 170,082 Bitcoin that the newly minted ETFs have gathered in less than a month.

The halving will reduce the supply at the same time that the demand increases and at a time when the amount of Bitcoin left is really, really small.

And by now, Bitcoiners are hodlers. 70% of Bitcoin addresses have hold their Bitcoin for over 1 year. 31% have hold their Bitcoin over 5 years and 16% have hold their Bitcoin over 10 years.

Are you bullish enough?

So what do you think will happen to the Bitcoin demand and price when the halving comes around in less than 4 months?

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Farooq

Bitcoin maximalist and a great source of signal.

You can follow him here

What did you think of today's newsletter?

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Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"Everything you do online is intermediated - your actions permissioned, your data custodied.

Opt out by running a private server."

— Start9

A few weeks back my personal server running StartOS crashed so, during the Christmas break, I had the opportunity to install Start9 and Umbrel multiple times until I settled on a more stable setup for my sovereign data.

I'm confident in my setup. Read more if you're interested in owning your own data.

Not your keys and your node, not your coins.

Personal server. Take 1

My first attempt at running a personal server burst into flames three weeks ago.

My mistake was to use an external SSD hard drive. Soon after getting the server up and running I realized that my setup was not ideal, but I kept myself in denial.

I got an HP EliteDesk 800 G2 with 8G of RAM and 240 GB internal SSD drive for $125 at Amazon. You need more than 240 GB to run a fully indexed Bitcoin node and I had an external 5TB SSD drive that I planned to use instead.

After tinkering a bit with the BIOS and mounting the external drive, I got things up and running.

Unfortunately, Start9 doesn't support external hard drives. I was able to configure things up but whenever I rebooted my server, the external drive configuration got wiped out and I had to manually mount the drive again and re-start the Bitcoin node.

A month ago I updated the StartOS and after shutting down the server it never came back online.

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As it turns out, the latest release of StartOS had closed the door to the settings I was using.

Personal server. Take 2

Knowing that I could not use StartOS anymore, I tried Umbrel.

It was a bit confusing at first. I had to install Debian and then install Umbrel but the system worked well. Just a bit slow. After all, Umbrel runs as a virtual server within Debian.

The setup seemed to work fine except for one thing: I could not connect my iPhone to Vaultwarden, the password manager. And that was a deal breaker.

I use the Bitwarden app on my iPhone. The apps requires a secure https connection to the Vaultwarden server and the Vaultwarden implementation on Umbrel only offers http (it's either a local connection or a Tor connection).

That is when I realized that I really like StartOS and that I needed a bigger internal SSD.

I bought a 2TB internal SSD drive for $95 that is compatible with my server and reinstalled StartOS again.

StartOS runs smoothly if you work within the supported configurations. And I can't complain, after all, Start9 is offering their OS for free, for you to download and run on your own hardware even though they sell hardware as well.

The results

I now have my server running again with the following software:

• Bitcoin Core: because you should run your own node
• electrs:
  • I use it to connect the Sparrow wallet to my Bitcoin node
  • It is also needed to run your own mempool instance
• Mempool: I can inspect transactions locally. No one needs to know which transactions I'm interested in
• Vaultwarden: my own password manager. Because LastPass is not an option anymore...

With this setup, I have full control of my own Bitcoin:

• Coldcard signing devices
• Sparrow wallet to send and receive Bitcoin
• Small memory card to maintain the airgap between my laptop running Sparrow and the Coldcards
• Sparrow connected to my own Bitcoin node so that I have full certainty on my transactions

If you trust someone else's Bitcoin node to tell you that you now control an UTXO, do you really control that UTXO?

The next step is to install my own Nostr relay to permanently store my own notes.

I'm not ready yet to run a Lightning node on my server. I use Mutiny on my phone and so I do have my own node, in a way.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Lyn Alden

We're tremendously lucky that Lyn shares her wisdom and knowledge with all of us. Like for example, the three rules of Bitcoin:

• The first rule of Bitcoin is you do not break Bitcoin.
• The second rule of Bitcoin is you do not break Bitcoin.
• The third rule of Bitcoin is you do not break Bitcoin.

You can follow her [here](Lyn Alden) and you should also consider buying her book Broken Money.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"Ordinals are fiat. And inscriptions aren’t rare"

— Southern Hands

Spending an outrageous amount of Bitcoin to own an specific satoshi is stupid and initially I just thought that if others want to do it, that's on them.

But with ordinals and inscriptions clogging the network and driving Bitcoin transaction fees through the roof, I came across this fantastic read by Guy Swann of a Medium post by Southern Hands titled Ordinals are Fiat. And Inscriptions aren’t Rare and I finally made my mind about them.

https://www.fountain.fm/episode/RRvB5Te4a1P8eXOO3LY6

Inscriptions and Ordinals are absolute crap. A fool's errand.

Ordinals

Ordinal theory numbers satoshi in a certain order as they get mined. Block #0 created satoshis 1 through 5,000,000,000; block #1 created satoshis 5,000,000,001 through 10,000,000,000 and so on.

You then track satoshis through UTXOs considering a First-In-First-Out logic.

When the UTXO becomes an input to a transaction, you count satoshis starting with Input 1, then Input 2 and transfer them to the outputs starting with Output 1, then Output 2, and so on.

Ordinals count from bottom to top. But what if I want to count from top to bottom?

I hereby create SuperOrdinals. The SuperOrdinals theory goes as follows:

• The last satoshi of the last input becomes the first satoshi of the first output.
• We count satoshis using Last-In-First-Out.
• Now an specific satoshi used in an input will land in a different output compared to regular Ordinal theory.

"Ordinals are a method of, first, pretending that it makes sense for satoshis to have serial numbers, and second, stipulating a set of rules to put them in order so that we can count and assign those serial numbers. In other words, we number the satoshis by fiat."

If you're thinking that this is bogus, it's because it is. Ordinals are arbitrary and subjective. Some people have agreed to follow certain logic and apply it to the Bitcoin blockchain and that's it.

Inscriptions

Inscriptions store JPGs in one of the fields of a transaction and are associated with an specific ordinal (numbered satoshi) of that transaction. Storing a JPG takes a lot of bytes and that is why fees are going up.

If you want to sell the inscription to somebody else, you just need to create a new transaction that is structured following the Ordinal theory so that the specific ordinal lands in an UTXO that is controlled by the buyer.

The inscription remains in the original transaction where it was stored. No one can change that.

The buyer gains no control of the inscription because the buyer has no control over the original transaction. The buyer is mentally assigning herself ownership of the inscription because she used the Ordinal theory to count satoshis.

This is not different than Johnny selling me the the star Polaris. I know have a piece of paper that says that I'm the rightful owner of the star Polaris.

Anyone can see every inscription that is on the Bitcoin blockchain. As a matter of fact, the owner has as much control over the inscription as any of us: zero.

There is no real ownership of inscriptions. Just an arbitrary logic that some people have decided to follow and pay for.

My verdict

Ordinals and inscriptions are a fool's errand. They are useless and they are harming the Bitcoin network by unnecessarily raising transaction fees.

I do hope that they fade soon.

At the same time, and following Jocko's philosophy, experiencing the impact of inscriptions now is good for Bitcoin.

We, and I definitely include myself here, have been complacent with UTXO management. We could get away with it while fees were low. But now we can't.

High transaction fees and full mempools are here to stay. Today it is inscriptions, tomorrow it will be the new wave of adopters coming in.

As a result, I can't setup a friend anymore with a non-custodial Lightning wallet and then send him 50,000 satoshi as a welcome gift. High fees make this impossible.

Bitcoin needs to continue evolving to support onboarding and adoption by new users even in a high fee environment and inscriptions are giving us the opportunity to build the solution before massive amounts of people come onboard.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Odell

He saw it coming: "Mempools will never clear again."

You can follow him here.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"Transactions fees are high. Did you manage your UTXOs appropriately while fees were low?"

— Jameson Lopp, Casa co-founder and CTO

Ordinal inscriptions are clogging the network and driving Bitcoin transaction fees through the roof.

High fees make transactions unaffordable and although Lightning can help avoid some of those fees, that will only work if you have your Lightning channels already setup and with sufficient liquidity.

Buying Bitcoin

While fees were low, it was ok to buy $20 worth of Bitcoin at Swan or Strike and then send it to your wallet but that is not a good option anymore.

Just like it's not a good option anymore to send $20 worth of Bitcoin from Fold or whatever Bitcoin rewards program you use to your Bitcoin wallet.

Let's consider a transaction with 1 input (one of your UTXOs) and 2 outputs (payment to the recipient and change coming back to you). This transaction will have a size of 226 vbytes according to this calculator. With transaction fees as high as 700 sats/vbyte this means a transaction fee of 158,200 sats.

If you send 1,000,000 sats from your custodial wallet to your own wallet, you will create a new UTXO in your wallet with 1,000,000 sats and when you try to spend it you will be able to make a payment of up to 841,800 sats with a fee of 158,200 sats: a whopping 18.8% transaction fee. 😱

You will need to balance the risk of having a large amount of sats in a custodial wallet with the the fee you're willing to pay to decide when to withdraw.

With the current transaction fees, UTXOs will incur the following fees when you try to spend them to the max after deducting the sats for fees:

• 1,000,000 sats: 18.8%
• 2,000,000 sats: 8.6%
• 5,000,000 sats: 3.3%

Non-custodial Lightning wallets

Non-custodial Lightning wallets are great from a sovereignty perspective. You hold your Bitcoin and no one can rug you.

But there is no such thing as a free lunch. The increased sovereignty comes with the burden of Lightning channel management.

I recklessly transferred small amounts of Bitcoin to my Mutiny wallet to pay the weekly allowance to my kids and now the wallet has 10 Lightning channels, each with limited liquidity and effectively useless.

To avoid making the same mistake as I did, create Lightning channels with at least 5 million sats. Otherwise you will end up a Lightning channel that is holding a majority of your Bitcoin as unspendable Bitcoin on reserve for when the channel is closed.

Swapping from Bitcoin to Lightning is a double whammy:

• You spend a large amount of Bitcoin in the transaction that creates the new Lightning channel
• A large amount of the Bitcoin that makes it to the channel is held as reserve for when the channel closes

Here is what Mutiny is suggesting if I try to swap 200,000 sats from Bitcoin to Lightning within the wallet. This transaction would likely end up with somewhere around 100,000 sats of spendable Bitcoin for the cost of 261,774 sats.

Summary

Create UTXOs that are large enough to justify the transaction fees that you will incur when you spend them.

Create Lightning channels that have big enough liquidity so that the Bitcoin held in reserve becomes a very small factor.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Jameson Lopp

I don't always agree with Jameson but I always learn something new from him.

You can follow him [here](Jameson Lopp).

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"We’ve crafted these technology standards to advance American innovation and account for the industry’s leadership in accelerating methane technology. Thanks to robust public feedback and engagement with states, Tribes, companies, and organizations, we are finalizing this historic action to reduce climate pollution, protecting people and the planet."

— Michael S. Regan, EPA Administrator

Today, the EPA announced new regulations to slash methane emissions by the oil & gas industry.

The press release is a combination of political speech, fantasy land accounting and wishful thinking.

Big oil is welcoming the regulation. They know that's what they need to say to avoid getting in trouble and they do have the dollars to manage the impact. Small oil is more worried because the new regulation will bring significant costs to them.

I hope the oil & gas industry channels their inner Jocko, say the word GOOD, and take this opportunity to embrace Bitcoin mining.

The oil & gas industry can transfer the new methane regulation from an operational cost into a new revenue stream by deploying Bitcoin miners to capture and process the excess methane.

To change a behavior, change the incentives

It sounds obvious but for some reason, most people don't follow this basic principle of human behavior.

The oil & gas industry leaks a lot of methane to the air. And they do it because it is not cost efficient for them to capture and process this methane.

The government approach to solving the problem is to issue a regulation that forces the industry to capture this methane at a loss.

Bitcoin represents an opportunity for the oil & gas industry to turn this regulation on its heels and make a profit out of capturing and processing the methane that today they are leaking.

They can deploy Bitcoin miners at these locations, powered by the captured methane, and make a profit along the way. Talk about a win-win-win.

If we had an intelligent and unbiased administration, they would encourage the industry to do just so. But we don't.

We have an administration that depends on the ponzi scheme called the dollar to sustain themselves, to continue to promise things that we can't afford, and keep piling up on the national debt.

And so they will never recommend Bitcoin, even if it's the right thing to do.

Just like the Canadian government sees Bitcoin as a threat to its authoritarian mandates, the US government sees Bitcoin as a threat to their ponzi scheme that keeps them in power.

Bitcoin miners is the solution

Daniel Batten is an environmentallist and a Bitcoiner who has done extensive research on this field as part of his work as a climate change venture capitalist.

You can find some of his research on Bitcoin mining and captured methane on this article:

https://batcoinz.com/50-landfills-mining-bitcoin-a-zero-emission-bitcoin-network/

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Daniel Batten

Daniel is an environmentalist and a Bitcoiner who runs a climate change venture fund and perfectly understands the incentives that drive human behavior.

He has done extensive research on the energy usage of the Bitcoin network and the opportunity to use Bitcoin to reduce carbon emissions.

You can follow him here.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"I knew this day would probably come, but didn't expect it so soon.

I am being investigated for running an illegal money transmission business in Canada (nodeless)."

— utxo

Today we woke up to the news that utxo is being forced to shut down his business nodeless.io.

Fortunately, utxo made the source code open source in anticipation of this event but that doesn't make the situation less shameless.

Canada is ramping up its efforts to ban any activity that could threaten the government of Prime Minister Trudeau.

Nodeless.io is a legitimate, peaceful business

Nodeless.io hosts your own instance of BTCPay Server, the open source Bitcoin payment processing software so that you don't have to and it charges you a small fee for doing so.

Nodeless.io is as much of a money transmission business as Microsoft Azure, the cloud provider for Mastercard Cloud Point of Sale solution.

But nodeless.io operates with Bitcoin and Canada doesn't like that.

Let's take a look at the services offered by Nodeless.io.

Nodeless.io is making it easy for businesses, not-for-profits and content creators to get paid in Bitcoin. It is not nodeless.io who gets paid. Money goes automatically to the Bitcoin or Lightning wallet of the business and nodeless.io gets a cut for the services provided.

Everything that nodeless.io does, you can do yourself with the BTCPay Server software. Utxo just automated the process so that we don't all need to become BTCPay Server experts or IT experts. That is not a money transmission business, that is an IT business.

So why is the Canadian government doing this?

Canadian citizens kept the protests of the Canadian truckers going by funding them with Bitcoin once the government ordered the banks to freeze the trucker's money and Mr. Trudeau didn't like that.

The Canadian government of Prime Minister Trudeau sees Bitcoin as a threat to its authoritarian mandates.

What's next

Utxo's fight is everyone's fight. Nothing is free. So go and support utxo the webmaster 🧑‍💻 with some Bitcoin.

Zap his profile or any of his posts.

Rights must be constantly defended. Otherwise evil will chip at them, little by little. You gotta fight for your right (to Bitcoin!).

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Utxo

Obviously.

You can follow the account at utxo the webmaster 🧑‍💻.

Stay tuned and contribute if / when utxo opens up a Geyser Fund for his legal fees.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"26.5% of Spanish people and 29.5 % of Italian people between the ages of 30 and 34 years old still live with their parents."

— The Mediterranean youth and the challenges of the permanent crisis

The Esade Center for Economic Policy and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation For Freedom just released an study (English, Spanish) conducted in Spain, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Portugal, and Tunisia covering people between the ages of 18 and 34.

Money is seriously broken when one out of every three people 30 to 34 years old can't afford to buy or rent a home.

The study is a very interesting read to understand the current situation in Mediterranean countries.

The recommendations it provides to address the permanent crisis of the people born between 1980 and 2005 shows how oblivious the establishment is to the root cause of the problem.

Ability to cover expenses and save

Less than half, in some cases, less than one third of the youth in this countries feels that they can cover their basic expenses.

When you look at their ability to save, you can see the dichotomy of short term vs. long term forecasting. Most youth don't find themselves capable to save for an emergency yet they think that they can save long term (housing and retirement).

The reality is that if you can't save for an emergency, you can't save for long term, but people tend to look at the future with rosier lenses.

Becoming independent

It is very common for younger people in Mediterranean countries to live with their parents while studying at college or university. That is why this study specifically broke down the housing results by ages and the results are shocking.

Half of the young Tunisians ages 30 to 34 still live with their parents! That number is 30% for Italy and 27% for Spain. The main cited reason: lack of own income.

And for those who were able to move out, the majority did so with financial support from their parents, the boomer generation. Or as I call them, the last generation with sound money.

The bogus solutions

You would think that this would be obvious by now but apparently not.

I believe that most people don't see that the money is broken because their mind can't conceive such a possibility. They only know fiat and when looking for solutions, money is not even on their list of candidates.

What do these esteemed economists think that we should do to solve the problem?

Here is their list:

• Improve higher level education: better access to, and more funds for public universities
• Minimum living income payments and savings accounts managed and partially funded by the government
• Expand public housing and simplify regulations for builders

The real reasons: the monetary premium that homes carry and the loss of real purchasing power by these generations are never mentioned. Inflation is mentioned in the opening statements and apparently it's Putin's fault.

Last week I ended my article with this statement and this week I'm repeating myself:

It's our duty to help people understand why they are how they are. Introduce them to sound money and the future that it can give us whenever you can.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Fortune

This is an RSS feed of the Fortune website. A great way to stay up to date on news once you ditch X and go Nostr only 😀

You can follow the account at Fortune

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"Take 2% off your personal loan rates to fund your holiday season."

— Great Northwest Federal Credit Union

I took this photo yesterday at a Super Walmart at Chehalis, a rural town in south Washington.

The place was packed with hard working people, looking for bargains for the holiday season.

Don't worry! If you can't afford a picture-perfect Christmas you are still in luck. Your local bank is happy to give you a 1 year loan at 7.5% interest rate so that you can buy all the things that you can NOT afford and finally bake those cookies like you deserve.

Debt is no longer seen as a negative. Unfortunately, debt is the only way for most people to afford any kind of life. Take the loan and pay back the minimum payments. We're all slaves of the fiat system. Until we liberate ourselves with Bitcoin

People are hurting and they are lost. They feel the pain in their pockets. They feel the pain in their diminishing standard of life. They feel the pain in their inability to save for a house, for education, for a better future.

They are slaves of the fiat system. They are victims of our broken money.

The savings people built during the pandemic are gone:

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Personal Saving Rate.

Credit card debt is at its highest it has even been and growing at a yearly rate never seen before:

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Large Bank Consumer Credit Card Balances.

And the interest rates on that debt is skyrocketing:

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US), Commercial Bank Interest Rate on Credit Card Plans.

The stakes are high. The system knows that its collapsing and it is now actively fighting us.

It's our duty to help people understand why they are how they are. Introduce them to sound money and the future that it can give us whenever you can.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Nat Brunell

Fantastic Bitcoin educator. Her latest articulation on why younger people are not saving for retirement is a must watch (hint: it's the video above).

You can follow her at nat brunell

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"The term “CVC mixing” means the facilitation of CVC transactions in a manner that obfuscates the source, destination, or amount involved in one or more transactions, regardless of the type of protocol or service used"

— FinCEN proposal for cryptocurrency mixers

If this proposal is accepted, any tool that might provide you privacy in your transactions will be considered a tool that finances terrorism.

The FinCEN agency at the Department of the Treasury wants you to have no privacy.

You must act now and leave a comment on the proposal rejecting it.

The FinCEN agency within the US Department of Treasury just released a proposal for new rules that make any option of privacy in your cryptocurrency transactions suspect of financing terrorism. They are applying the PATRIOT act to cryptocurrency transactions as a whole, something that the agency acknowledges has never done before for a class of transactions.

Financial privacy is privacy. Anything else just brings us to the Orwellian world of 1984.

Multiple websites have already posted thorough analysis of this new rule and the implications to regular citizens like you and me.

The US government is declaring cryptocurrency akin to terrorism. This is both a disgrace and unsurprising.

The government fought against your right to privacy in digital communications. They didn't want you to have end-to-end encrypted communications but they lost. And now, just like then, the excuse is the same: bad guys like privacy.

The reality is that EVERYBODY likes privacy. Bad guys also use phones to coordinate. They use guns, cars, and overwhelmingly. the use US dollars to finance their operations. Should we consider cell phones tool of terrorism? Is the US dollar a tool of terrorism?

Any person who loves democracy should demand the immediate repealing of the PATRIOT act.

Analysis of the proposed regulations

Here are the best articles out there summarizing the ruling:

The reality: all this is bullshit

The reality is that the US government is afraid of Bitcoin and will use any excuse to attack it.

Illicit transactions represent 0.25% of the total cryptocurrency transactions.

Illicit transactions represent between 2% and 5% of the total transactions done with fiat currencies like the US dollar.

Which currency is REALLY funding terrorism? According to the US government, it's cryptocurrencies.

Take action. Comment on the proposal

You must comment on the proposal. The page for comments is here. Make sure to submit as an anonymous person if you don't want your name and address made publicly available with the comment.

The best way to comment is to take the output generated by ChatGPT and add some personal bits to it.

Here is what ChatGPT created for me:

I am writing to express my vehement opposition to the proposed Special Measure Regarding Convertible Virtual Currency Mixing as a Class of Transactions of Primary Money Laundering Concern.

This proposal has raised significant concerns, and I believe it would be a grave mistake to implement it in its current form.

While I understand the importance of addressing money laundering and other illicit financial activities, this proposed measure would have far-reaching consequences for individuals and businesses involved in the legitimate use of cryptocurrencies.

The potential risks and harms associated with this proposal greatly outweigh its intended benefits.
My objections to this proposal are as follows:

1. Overreach: The proposed measure overly broadens the scope of surveillance and regulation, targeting innocent individuals and entities who engage in legitimate transactions with convertible virtual currencies. It essentially treats everyone as a potential criminal, infringing upon our fundamental rights to financial privacy and freedom.

2. Chilling Effect: If this proposal is implemented, it would create a chilling effect on the adoption and use of cryptocurrencies for lawful purposes. People and businesses would be discouraged from engaging in legitimate financial activities, hindering innovation and economic growth.

3. Privacy Invasion: The proposal infringes on the privacy rights of individuals and entities. It demands intrusive levels of data collection and reporting, undermining our right to financial privacy, which is a cornerstone of a free society.

4. Technical Challenges: The proposal assumes a level of technical knowledge and capability that is often beyond the capacity of many users of cryptocurrencies. Compliance would place an undue burden on individuals and small businesses, discouraging participation in this emerging technology.

5. Ineffectiveness: There is no clear evidence that implementing such a measure will effectively combat money laundering or illicit financial activities. Criminals are likely to find alternative methods to evade detection, while law-abiding users and businesses will bear the brunt of the consequences.

I urge you to reconsider this proposal and explore alternative, more targeted approaches to address money laundering concerns within the cryptocurrency space.

I am not opposed to reasonable and targeted regulatory measures to combat illicit activities, but this proposal, as it stands, is a disproportionate and overreaching response.

I implore you to listen to the concerns of the cryptocurrency community and other stakeholders and to ensure that any regulatory measures put in place are balanced, effective, and respectful of the rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens and businesses.

Thank you for considering my perspective on this matter. I hope that you will make the right decision for the sake of preserving individual freedoms and encouraging responsible innovation.

Sincerely,

And here is what I also included to make the message more personal and effective:

Financial privacy is privacy. This proposal is an unconstitutional attack on my financial privacy.

Everyone likes privacy. That includes terrorists. You can't ban privacy because a very small minority of people are doing bad things with it. Are you going to ban end-to-end encrypted messages? Cell phones?

The WSJ article used to demand action by the US Department of Treasury was fake news. Hamas didn't receive $90 million USD in cryptocurrency. Analysis done by Chainalysis (who the US government uses as an expert company when prosecuting people) determined that the amount is more like $450,000. That's a 99% error!

Illicit activities represent approximately 0.25% of total crypto transactions and between 2% and 5% of fiat transactions. Cryptocurrency is not financing terrorism. The US dollar is financing terrorism.

Why don't you go after the big banks and the executives who benefit from all that money laundering of US dollars?

As Sen. Ron Wyden, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said: "*The FinCEN Files investigation reinforces the fact that we now have two systems of law enforcement and justice in the country. Drug cartels move millions through US banks; poor people go to jail for possession. If you're wealthy and well-connected, you can figure out how to do an enormous amount of harm to society at large and ensure that it accrues to enormous financial benefit for all of you.”

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Walker

Walker has been instrumental in getting people at Nostr to take action against this ridiculous regulation.

You can follow him at walker.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"We envisage a digital euro as a digital form of cash that can be used for all digital payments, free of charge, and that meets the highest privacy standards. It would coexist alongside physical cash, which will always be available, leaving no one behind."

— Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank

Central banks will issue digital currencies and we can't stop them. But we can educate people about the tyranny that central bank digital currencies represent. It's our moral duty.

The European Central Bank released a report on Wednesday with the conclusions of the investigation phase of the digital euro. I've read the report so that you don't have to. Keep reading to find my conclusions.

The press release is here and surprise, surprise, they can't sell you the digital euro without gaslighting you.

The press release outlines the timeline for the launch of the digital euro:

• Investigation phase: October '21 - October '23 just concluded
• Preparation phase: November '23 - November '25
• Launch phase: no dates provided. I assume it will be during 2026

The European Union needs to create a legislative framework for the digital euro and the design outlined in the report will be adjusted as needed to comply with this framework.

The ultimate goal is to setup a digital payments infrastructure that is fully captured and controlled by the European politicians.

The digital euro is not a store of value. It's only a means of payment.

When you need to lie to justify the project...

The design envisages the digital euro as a digital form of cash that could be used for all digital payments throughout the euro area. It would be widely accessible, free for basic use and available both online and offline. It would offer the highest level of privacy and allow users to settle payments instantly in central bank money. It could be used from person to person, at the point of sale, in e-commerce and in government transactions. No digital payment instrument offers all these features. The digital euro would fill that gap.

Bold highlights are mine. Please raise your hand if you can think of a digital payment instrument that exists today and offers all these features.

Off course, there is one benefit that the digital euro offers and Bitcoin doesn't but the press release conveniently omitted it even though it's listed in the report:

risk-free (as money issued by the central bank)

The ECB will select providers to build the platform and necessary infrastructure as part of the preparation phase that starts now.

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Payment Service Providers vs Banks

Payment Service Providers (PSPs) will have the direct relationship with consumers. They will create the account, provide the application used to manage funds, make, and receive transactions.

You will be allowed to have only one digital euro account. You can move your account from one PSP to another requesting a portability (like moving your cell phone service from one carrier to another).

PSP will perform KYC procedures during the onboarding process and validate transactions (including AML/CFT checks) at execution time.

PSPs will hold central bank money to interact with commercial banks and central banks.

This is what happens when you transfer euros from your commercial bank to your digital account:

1. Money is moved from the central bank account of your commercial bank to the central bank account of your PSP
2. The central bank credits the euros from the central bank account of the PSP
3. The digital euros are added as an asset to your account
4. The digital euros are added as a liability to the balance sheet of the central bank

Your digital euro account is managed by the PSP but it is held by the central bank. Your digital euros are a liability on the balance sheet of the central bank and settlement of transactions with digital euros is done by the central bank.

The ECB doesn't want a run on commercial banks so there is a legal limit on how much of your money you can convert to digital euros.

The ECB is creating a digital euro but will keep it on a tight leash to protect the commercial banks.

You don't need to link your commercial bank account to your digital euro account but linking it will be highly encouraged by the system:

• You can make a payment in digital euros for an amount that is higher than what you have in your wallet IF you have a linked commercial bank account. The extra money is automatically withdrawn from your bank account
• If you receive a payment that takes your digital euros balance beyond the legal limit, the excess is automatically dumped to your bank account

Privacy

The digital euro would make data protection a priority. The Eurosystem would not be able to see users’ personal data or link payment information to individuals. The digital euro would also achieve a cash-like level of privacy for offline payments.

When the ECB says the highest possible privacy, it means the highest possible based on the legislation that will regulate the digital euro. Privacy is a configuration setting to be tweaked based on the wimps of politicians. And if current actions are to be used as reference, you will have no privacy.

Let's unpack the ECB statement above.

"The Eurosystem would not be able to see user's personal data or link payment information to individuals."

The Eurosystem are the central banks of the respective countries of the Eurozone plus the European Central Bank. They will settle all transactions and hold your account but your identity will be anonymized

"The digital euro would also achieve a cash-like level of privacy for offline payments."

This is subject to what politicians decide and as we already know, they want to know everything you do.

Today, your euros are a liability on the balance sheet of the commercial bank you work with. Digital euros will instead be a liability on the balance sheet of the central banks.

Data available to the Eurosystem would be limited to what is necessary to perform critical digital euro-related tasks within the regulatory framework and would also be pseudonymised.

Again, bold highlights are mine. What will be critical tasks in the future? Will that include determining if you have exceeded your CO2 quota for the month? And what does pseudonymised means? The ECB is already giving you the answer:

Privacy and data protection need to be balanced with other public policy objectives, in particular anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) and combating tax evasion. In addition, open banking can be facilitated by the sharing of private data. It is up to co-legislators to determine where to establish the appropriate balance amongst these objectives. A digital euro would comply with the legal framework in place at the time of its potential issuance.

Bold highlights again mine.

According to the report, the PSPs are the ones during the heavy duty surveillance. Every payment includes an authentication process where the PSP needs to verify your identity before validating the transaction.

Offline payments

The digital euro will support low value offline payments (without Internet connection) through an offline wallet that relies on the secure element of your device. These peer-to-peer payments will use technologies like NFC or QR codes.

The offline wallet will be separate from your online wallet. You need to fund the offline wallet to do peer-to-peer payments. You will also have a maximum amount of euros allowed in the offline wallet with this amount being a subset of total euros you're allowed to hold.

The key here is what do the politicians consider low value.

Already the ECB is caveating the privacy of offline payments:

The exemption of offline digital euro payments from certain AML/CFT obligations would only be possible if the co-legislators find it consistent with the usual risk-based approach to apply such exemptions.

Governments and businesses

Government are not allowed to hold digital euros. They can use digital euros to make or receive payments and any received digital euros are automatically transferred to their regular commercial bank accounts.

Don't be surprised if the launch of Universal Basic Income is coordinated with the launch of the digital euro to encourage adoption.

Businesses will have a digital euro account to process payments but they will NOT be allowed to hold digital euros either. Payments received will be automatically transferred to their traditional bank accounts to help them manage their liquidity.

The ECB is so focused on the max holding limit and zero holding limit for businesses that they even suggest having a third party aggregating transactions for the day if the business doesn't want to transfer money to the bank on a per transaction basis and instead they want to do it daily. Unnecessary complexity for the sake of preventing bank runs.

PSPs will not charge users transaction fees. Instead, they will charge businesses, just like VISA and Mastercard do today.

Current payment solutions are toast

The Venmos and Paypals of Europe are toast. They will need to become PSPs to survive.

Today, there is a Venmo for Spain, another one for France, another one for Italy, etc. The digital euro opens up the possibility for one of these payment companies to reach European scale by using the digital euro but businesses will need to clearly show the option to pay with digital euros and so the incentive to operate with these private payment companies instead of with your PSP will be very limited.

Same applies to Paypal. Amazon in France may still offer to checkout with Paypal France, but it will also show pay with digital euros so why would French people rely on Paypal France anymore? Amazon is also better off having a single digital euros account for France and dis-intermediating Paypal.

On top of that, the EU will develop its own app to manage your digital euros as well as a physical payment card linked to your digital euro account.

This app will be independent of the apps that PSP may develop. You still need to open the account with the PSP and your account will be subject to the rules of the PSP but you can manage the account through this free app if you want to.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Sovereign Matt

Sovereign Matt was an early adopter at Nostr and has contributed to the development with his icons for Nostr.

You can follow him at Sam Wouters.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"Nobody is using Lightning” should now be a dead meme.

Launching a new Bitcoin report from River How the Lightning Network grew by 1212% in 2 years ⚡.

— Sam Wouters, October 10, 2023

Welcome to the latest issue of the Bitcoin For Families newsletter. This issue goes over two new developments announced this week that reminded me that Bitcoin will win.

Bitcoin's key strength is its security. And its security stems from its simplicity. Bitcoin operates on a limited set of simple rules that are very difficult to change and this has implications over the short, medium and long term.

In the short term...

Bitcoin is at a disadvantage. The Bitcoin network, with its simplicity, offers a limited set of simple primitives for developers compared with other networks like Ethereum or Solana which offer more complex primitives.

So what's the catch?

Ethereum and Solana offer a wider and more complex set of primitives, compared with Bitcoin. And they do so at the expense of security.

Blockchains that use proof-of-stake as their consensus mechanism are not secure. Only proof-of-work is secure. That's why Bitcoin remains alone and secure.

But It's faster and easier to build on top of Ethereum or Solana. We have seen it. Thousands of crypto developers flocked to these networks while saying that Bitcoin is only good for money.

And they built lots of applications: smart contracts, lending platforms. All built on top of a house of cards. Because Ethereum and Solana are not secure. You might be able to build faster but what you build won't last.

And by the way, if the Bitcoin network were to be only for money and managed to deliver to the world the best, soundest money possible, that would be a life changing event for humanity.

But rest assured, the Bitcoin network can do more than that.

In the medium term...

It is harder to build on top of the Bitcoin network. But some people are doing it anyway. People who are focused on the long term and will not sacrifice security for the sake of speed.

That is how we got the Lightning network. Detractors of Bitcoin used to say that Bitcoin can't handle all the transactions of the world and that was their justification for building on top of Ethereum or Solana. But guess what...that's not true anymore as highlighted by the first of the two developments that got my attention this week.

The Lightning network grew by 1212% in 2 years

It took time, determination and ingenuity. But it happened. Some people figured out how to build a payment network secured by Bitcoin and capable of handling the volumes required to replace Visa or Mastercard using the limited set of simple primitives available to Bitcoin developers.

But wait, there is more....

Because on October 10th, a new white paper was released describing BitVM, a new proposal that, using the existing capabilities of the Bitcoin network, and without the need for soft or hard forks, promises that any computable function can be verified on Bitcoin, paving the way for smart contracts on the Bitcoin network.

It took years to figure it out. It wasn't easy. Again, playing with only a limited set of simple primitives is hard. But the door is now open to smart contracts on the Bitcoin network.

In the long term...

In the long term Ethereum, Solana and all the other unsecured, proof-of-stake networks will become irrelevant.

They sure had a head start, but ultimately, they will become irrelevant because once Bitcoin developers build enough abstraction on top of the Bitcoin network, then the difference in the complexity and size of the simple primitives becomes irrelevant.

With enough time, the Bitcoin network will offer the same abstracted capabilities as Ethereum or Solana with the advantage of running on the most secure network with the soundest money available to humans. No one can beat that.

The Bitcoin network will prevail over other networks like Ethereum and Solana. Bitcoin will win.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Sam Wouters

Sam is a Bitcoin research analyst at River. He is the author of the Lighting research I highlighted and he is active on Nostr, answering questions about the report.

You can follow him at Sam Wouters.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"In CBO’s projections, the federal deficit totals $1.4 trillion in 2023 and averages $2.0 trillion per year from 2024 to 2033."

— Congressional Budget Office, February 2023

Welcome to the latest issue of the Bitcoin For Families newsletter. This issue digs deeper into the US debt and the Federal Government's own projections.

A few days ago I saw a headline about how the US government had borrowed $250B USD in a single day. A single day!

That prompted me to look deeper into what is the current status of the US Federal Government debt. What I found out only made me even more determined to stack sats and I'm sharing some of the info here hoping it will help others.

The Fiscal Year 2023 deficit was bigger than expected

The Congressional Budget Office predicted a deficit of $1.4 trillion USD for 2023. The fiscal year 2023 ended on September 30th, 2023 and the reports have not been updated yet with September number so bear in mind that the actual numbers you see here for FY2023 are still missing the September expenditures.

The FY2022 had a deficit of $1.375T USD and the actuals for FY2023 up to August 30th, 2023 include a deficit of $1.524T USD. That means that, with one month still pending, the CBO projection of a deficit of $1.4T USD is off by 8.85%.

For reference, the deficit for the first 11 months of FY2022 was $946B. During the first 11 months of FY2023, we borrowed $578B more than during the first 11 months of FY2022.

If this sounds scary, let me go back to the fact that a few days ago, in a single day, we borrowed $250B USD.

The government projections are insane

Some people dismiss the warnings that Bitcoiners issue about the ridiculous debt by saying that Bitcoiners are full of conspiracies or delusional with their magical money or similar ad hominem attacks.

But what happens when it's the own government the one that tells you that the deficit will reach 200% of GDP by 2033?

After reading the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2023 to 20233 report by the Congressional Budget Office I can't stop thinking that I don't have enough Bitcoin.

And remember, this report, released in February 2023, underrepresented the actual deficit for current fiscal year by at least 8.85%. So imagine how much higher the ACTUAL deficit will be in 2033.

Here are the highlights:

• The deficit will grow by $20T USD between 2024 and 2033 reaching $52T USD
• By 2033, half of the money we borrow will be to pay interest of existing debt (bankrupt anyone?)
• Net interest on the debt will reach $3.6T. To put the number into perspective, the Federal Outlays for 2033 is projected to be $6.6T USD. The interest on the debt will be equal to 54% of the expenditures!

The chart below is meant to reassure you: on your conviction on Bitcoin.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Dream Chaser

Sharing a mix of beautiful places and relevant news.

You can follow him at Dream Chaser ⚡️🐆.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"We are deeply concerned. The concern is growing – almost by the day – because once we are in a shutdown there doesn’t seem to be a clear path out."

— Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the US Chamber of Commerce

Welcome to the latest issue of the Bitcoin For Families newsletter. This issue covers the upcoming government shutdown and what can you do as a bitcoiner to prepare yourself.

Yesterday I saw an article on CNN giving all kind of bad suggestions on what to do in case of a government shutdown, like for example, trading your stock portfolio based on the gut reactions of the market. This is BAD advice. You should never trade your stock based on short term, temporary events.

That's why I decided to cover the government shutdown today and what you can do to prepare yourself as a bitcoiner.

Why are we heading towards a shutdown

Congress has not passed a budget for the 2024 fiscal year that starts on October 1st, 2023 and therefore, without a budget, the government will shutdown come October 1st.

We could debate a lot about the fact that Congress has not done the ONE thing that they must do: pass a budget to allocate those precious dollars they take from our paycheck but I'll leave that to the politics newsletters out there.

Some bitcoiners will argue that a partial shutdown of the government is actually good, given that it has grown too big already. But a shutdown is not the same as eliminating or scaling down useless departments and agencies. A shutdown impacts everything that Congress hasn't deemed as essential and will, for example, close National Parks, which I think are one of the greatest inventions of the United States.

The US federal government operates on a fiscal year that goes from October 1st to September 30th. Typically, the House would pass a series of bills containing the annual budget, then the Senate would modify them and finally House and Senate would negotiate and settle on the final bills and the budget.

But the members within the ruling party at the House can't agree on a budget so nothing has been passed.

There will be a shutdown and despite what Mr. Bradley said, the shutdown will be ended by social pressure towards the ruling party in the House, who has full control to pass a bill.

What will happen during the shutdown

Here is a quick video detailing what happens when the government shuts down.

What to do as a bitcoiner

NOTHING.

Really. DO NOTHING.

Ok, maybe you do need to do something but that's unrelated to the shutdown.

Take a look at the suggestions from an article I wrote back in July. If you follow the recommendations below, you should be fine.

Stay humble and protect your sats

Finally, there is a good chance that sats will go on sale when the government shuts down so it could be a good opportunity to increase your savings with real money if you can still remain cash flow positive.

But also consider that because sats are on sale, you will not get as much fiat back for your sats if you need to dip into your savings during the shutdown. This is particularly important for federal employees who will be not getting a paycheck until the shutdown ends.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Tony

Tony writes fantastic guides about Bitcoin and Nostr.

You can follow him and find all his guides here.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

Photo credit: National Park photo by National Parks Conservation Association and sourced under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

"Are you asking the right questions of your
Bitcoin qualified custodian?"

— River

Welcome to the latest issue of the Bitcoin For Families newsletter. This issue talks about the right way to save with Bitcoin in your IRA.

IRAs and Roth IRAs are a great way to save for retirement and several Bitcoin companies allow you to create IRAs that hold Bitcoin as opposed to the traditional stocks and ETFs.

But as we have learned with the recent developments, not all Bitcoin IRAs are born equal and it's time to look at what's the right way to save with Bitcoin in your IRA.

In the past, I've recommended two companies for your IRAs: Swan and River and I've used Swan myself to buy Bitcoin.

From now on, I am only recommending River.

In-House vs Outsource

Both Swan and River are Bitcoin only companies that encourage their customers to self-custody.

There is a market for Bitcoin held in custody and this includes IRAs, corporate treasuries, family offices and other entities that hold large amounts of Bitcoin and need a setup that is more advanced than my Coldcard tucked in a drawer.

Both Swan and River offer custody services for this market and the main difference between them is that River has built the custody infrastructure in-house while Swan outsources it to different partners.

River

River runs its own custody infrastructure and uses multisig cold storage so that you have direct visibility over your assets while preventing accidental or malicious transfers by a rogue employee (yours or theirs).

Simple and effective.

Swan

Swan outsources its custody infrastructure to two separate companies:

• Fortress (now Ripple): a crypto focused trust company (not Bitcoin only) that manages the legal and regulatory aspects of holding the Bitcoin from Swan customers
• BitGo: a crypto company (not Bitcoin only) that provides the cold storage

Swan users don't have a multisig option and therefore don't have direct visibility of their assets.

Swan has been on the defensive with the Bitcoin community for the last few months due to their partner choices.

First, they had to rush out of their previous trust partner, Prime Trust, before this partner collapsed. Prime Trust lost the keys to the wallets of some of their customers but Swan was able to move its assets from Prime Trust to a new partner, Fortress, just before Prime Trust collapsed.

Now Fortress is also under duress after being hacked and losing $15M USD from its customers. As a result, they've been bailed out and acquired by the shitcoin company Ripple.

Swan is understandably taking action and it recently announced plans to create a new trust company, in partnership with BitGo, that will be Bitcoin only and will provide the legal and regulatory support plus also be responsible for the actual cold storage.

This new trust company will be used by Swan and will also provide its services to other entities.

Maybe, once the new trust company is live, Swan will offer multisig cold storage for your IRA funds. Until then, I can only recommend River for your Bitcoin IRA.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Iefan

The Nostr community is blessed with builders who are quickly adding new services on top of Nostr and Iefan is one of them.

He just launched a calendar running on Nostr! Check it out here

You can follow him [here](iefan 🕊️).

BloggingBitcoin

A blog focused on Bitcoin, Nostr and freedom tech. Do I need to say more?

Check it out here.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"Do I think it’s possible that China’s Xi trusts Russia’s Putin who trusts Brazil’s da Silva, and so on and that they can work together and trust each other enough to establish a gold-backed BRICS currency that eventually includes half of the G20 economic giants?

Possible, yes

Probable? Still a heavy no

— James Lavish

Welcome to the latest issue of the Bitcoin For Families newsletter. This issue covers the expansion of the BRICS economic bloc and the implications for Bitcoin.

Slightly over a week ago, the BRICS economic block, composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, formally accepted six new countries into their organization: Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.

The mainstream media barely covered the news because it's not good news for the Western world.

But no, the expanded BRICS+ will not bring Bitcoin to the world.

I was wrong. BRICS+ won't bring hyperbitcoinization

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The BRICS countries have been very vocal about their desire to stop using US dollars for international trade among themselves and logically Bitcoin is the best choice for them to replace the US dollar.

But these countries are not ruled by logical people. They are ruled by politicians.

And no politician wants to give up the power of their own fiat currency. Not even Argentina, after going through multiple episodes of hyperinflation, will give up the power of printing money at will.

Brazil's president endorsed the creation of a common currency at the beginning of the summit that formalized the expansion but has also endorsed the idea of trading in their respective currencies.

Russia's Putin wants to use their respective local currencies.

India is skeptical of the practicality of not using the US dollar given that all the financial infrastructure that exists today is built with the US dollar in mind but they support using the rupee for trade among BRICS countries.

China is also vocal about reforming the financial systems to move away from the US dollar with the stated goal of using the yuan as the new global currency. Never mind the lack of liquidity of a currency that you're not allowed to freely trade.

And finally, South Africa, also supports using their respective local currencies.

So what's going to happen?

They won't create their own currency. They don't trust each other that much.

They will increase their trade using their respective currencies. This will be a fundamental tenet of the BRICS+ block.

It's the oil

The current five BRICS countries represent 26% of the global GDP and the addition of six new countries only expands that number to 29%. So why did they go through the trouble of more than doubling the size of the block in terms of countries? And why did they leave unanswered requests from other 20 countries to join?

Oil, gas and minerals.

The expanded BRICS+ block controls 43% of the global crude oil production and China and India, two of the original BRICS countries happen to be the 1st and 3rd biggest crude oil importers respectively.

Now, China and India will be able to buy the majority of their oil using their local currencies instead of US dollars.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will sell their oil in a currency other than the US dollar. The petrodollar is no more.

What will Saudi Arabia do with the yuans it receives from selling oil to China? They will use them to trade with China or with other BRICS+ countries. That is the REAL reason why the BRICS has doubled the number of countries. The BRICS+ is creating a circular economy of local currencies.

No more US debt for me, thanks

That is in a nutshell what all members of the BRICS+ block want. They want to stop buying US debt. They don't want to continue paying the bill for the US lifestyle and US government excesses.

Because every time the US economy hits a new rock, the US government solution is to devaluate the existing debt holders, either by printing more money or by increasing rates dramatically. And one way or another, their existing debt assets end up being worth much less.

The BRICS+ countries will little by little expand the intra-block trade in local currencies and the international demand for US debt will go down dramatically now that the petrodollar is no more.

This will be the real impact. The foreign demand for US debt will plummet, forcing the US Treasury to maintain interest rates high to attract demand from other sectors.

Notable notes

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Recommendations

Marty Bent

Marty is Odell's brother. Founder of TFTC.io, co-host of Rabbit Hole Recap and Partner at Ten31. He is a driving force in the Bitcoin community and a great source of information.

You can follow him [here](Marty Bent).

Bitcoin Breakdown

Bitcoin Breakdown gives you the TLDR summaries of the biggest events in Bitcoin. It's a very effective way to stay up to date with the industry.

Check it out here.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

Buy Bitcoin with Swan

If you want to buy Bitcoin, I highly recommend using Swan. It's where I buy my Bitcoin.

They are on a mission to onboard 10 million bitcoiners and get them to self-custody.

Use this link to receive $10 free to get you started.

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.

"It is truly heartbreaking to see people in pain, not understanding why everything keeps getting more expensive… not understanding why, no matter how hard they work, they can never seem to get ahead… not understanding why $100 can fill their fridge one year, and barely buy a couple days worth of food the next…"

— Walker

Welcome to the latest issue of the Bitcoin For Families newsletter. This issue is a wake up call for all who are struggling to make ends meet and don't know why.

Do you know anyone who doesn't understand why he/she can't move forward no matter what? Do them a favor and forward them this article.

The last two weeks have featured many posts on Nostr with videos of people who are desperate; they work hard and yet can barely make ends meet between rent, bills and groceries. Like Walker said, their desperation is heartbreaking and what's even more heartbreaking for me is the fact that they don't understand why.

The fiat experiment that we're living in has turned out to be the biggest transfer of wealth from the low and middle class to the upper class and this same upper class has very cleverly managed to hide it from everyone, blaming this human disaster on anything and everything else except the real culprit.

How do they get away with it? Why is it that most people do not know who is causing their financial misfortune and how?

It's the inflation, stupid

Inflation is the reason why everything is so expensive.

One of my first articles on the Bitcoin for Families newsletter explains how inflation works, why housing is so expensive and why consumer prices only have skyrocketed now.

Check it out to understand why, no matter how hard you try, you can't save for a house, can't afford the rent and things getting more and more expensive.

It's the politicians that keep printing money out of thin air to pay for things that we can't afford.

It all started with Nixon lying

"Your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today."
— Richard Nixon, 1971

On August 15, 1971 Nixon announced to the American people that he was temporarily suspending the dollar convertibility to gold, effectively starting the experiment of a fiat economy. During his speech, he promised Americans that your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today.

Since then, and according to the official figures of the Federal Reserve, the US dollar has lost 87% of its value. One dollar on August 1971 is now worth 13 cents.

Have salaries gone up 87% since? Nooooooooo! But the rich people have gotten richer thanks to the constant printing of money out of thin air.

Nixon sacrificed the future savings of Americans to continue paying for the Vietnam War.

And all presidents since have kept robbing you.

ALL OF THEM.

The media hides the truth

Imagine if, that night, Nixon had announced that we're going to start a new national economy rooted on trusting that the politicians will do the right thing at all times when it comes to how much new money to insert into the economy.

Everyone would had immediately said thanks but no, thanks.

The media is not dumb. It was not dumb then and it is not dumb now. They could have easily called Nixon out. But they didn't. And they continue to hide the truth from the people.

Why? Because the media is owned by the very same people who benefit from the wealth transfer that the fiat economy represents.

Below is a chart from the fantastic website https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ that shows the extent of the wealth transfer.

Politicians love hating the 1 percenters and constantly talk about how they will end the income inequality, but they NEVER tell you why it is happening. Why is that?

They don't want you to know. That's why inflation is not taught at school. That's why the concept of money, and how it works, is not taught at school.

And that is why the media tries very hard to blame inflation on anything else but the real culprits:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/11/us-inflation-market-power-america-antitrust-robert-reich

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/24/business/inflation-russia-ukraine-explainer/index.html

This article on CNN takes the crown: inflation is actually good for you 👏👏👏
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/01/economy/inflation-good-bad-winners-losers/index.html

Educate yourself about inflation

This speech by Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman explains inflation in a very accessible way. He even predicts the headlines that I pointed out above.

Learn Bitcoin

Now you know what is pushing you down. It's the politicians that keep printing money out of thin air to pay for things that we can't afford.

What can you do? How do you protect your savings? The answer is Bitcoin.

You can start learning about Bitcoin.

Go to my archive of newsletters: https://newsletter.bitcoinforfamilies.com.
And here are some interesting books to check out:

And to continuously learn more about Bitcoin, join Nostr and follow some Bitcoiners there.

Here is a note to get you started:

nostr:note1k4vplcen8cp4eymhrmyqd098n38gpyx3p386hh436u29d245dpfs7lqfgg

Notable notes

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nostr:note17lt0essdq7yzp4kgwyfq6j92axty5hrmzqswaea75vqzy6aja25q23jz86

Recommendations

Walker

Walker is a brilliant educator and the creator of the Nostrich logo for Nostr.

You can follow him here.

Bitcoin Breakdown

Bitcoin Breakdown gives you the TLDR summaries of the biggest events in Bitcoin. It's a very effective way to stay up to date with the industry.

Check it out here.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Your feedback helps me create the best newsletter possible for you.

Please leave a comment and checkout comments from other subscribers and readers. I love hearing from the Bitcoin For Families community ❤️ 🙏🏻

Buy Bitcoin with Swan

If you want to buy Bitcoin, I highly recommend using Swan. It's where I buy my Bitcoin.

They are on a mission to onboard 10 million bitcoiners and get them to self-custody.

Use this link to receive $10 free to get you started.

See you again next week!
— Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.