Marius Off🔗Chain's avatar
Marius Off🔗Chain
Marius@primal.net
npub1yxkv...w8a5
Spreading the word about Bitcoin on https://offchain.media and also writting stuff for Cryptoast
Heard about Senator Lummis's "#Bitcoin Act of 2024"? The one proposing US 🇺🇸 governement to create a strategic reserve of 1,000,000 BTC? Here is what you have to know about it 👇 On the same day as Trump's speech at @The Bitcoin Conference, Cynthia Lummis introduced a strategic Bitcoin reserve legislation. The goal is simple 🎯 buying 1 million BTC to pay down the national debt, wich is over 35 trillion dollars 💸 Senator Lummis officially published the bill, here are some highlights 👇 FINDINGS The bill starts by highlighting Bitcoin's utility, resilience, role as a medium of exchange 💱 and its potential to benefit the US economy 🇺🇸 It says that, like gold 🪙, Bitcoin is seen as an asset that can strengthen the US financial position 📈 ESTABLISHMENT OF STRATEGIC BITCOIN RESERVE The bill proposes to create a decentralized network of BTC storage 🔐 among various states of the country to ensure the long-term custody and management of private keys 🗝️ held by the government BITCOIN PURCHASE PROGRAM The proposed law 🧑‍⚖️ requires The Secretary of the Treasury to: 1⃣ Buy at least 200,000 Bitcoins per year for 5 years, totaling 1 million BTC; 2⃣ Make these purchases transparently with a strategy to minimize the impact on Bitcoin's price; 3⃣ Hold these Bitcoins for at least 20 years to ensure long-term stability and security; 4⃣ Not sell, exchange, auction, or otherwise dispose of the funds for any purpose other than repaying federal debt; 5⃣ Never sell more than 10% of the reserves over a 2-year period. PROOF OF RESERVE SYSTEM Additionnally, the Secretary of the Treasury must : - Publish annual public reports for at least 20 years; - Provide quarterly proof of reserves 🧾 OFFSETTING THE COST OF THE STRATEGIC 5 BITCOIN RESERVE Lummis' law requires that between 2025 and 2029, the first $6 billion of net profits remitted by FED banks 🏦 to the Treasury will be used to fund the Bitcoin purchase program. PROTECTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS The legislation concludes by defending private proprety rights 🕊️ "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize the Federal Government to seize, confiscate, or otherwise impair any property right in the lawfully acquired Bitcoin holdings of any person; or infringe upon the rights of individuals, businesses, or organizations to purchase, hold, transfer, or dispose of Bitcoin in accordance with the law" And what I feel is the most important 👇 “AFFIRMATION OF RIGHTS. This Act affirms and protects the rights of persons to maintain full lawful control over the Bitcoin and other digital assets of those indi-viduals, recognizing that the ability to maintain self-cus-tody of private keys is fundamental to the principles of financial sovereignty, privacy, and personal liberty in the digital age.” Sources: 🇫🇷 🇬🇧 image
🥕Taproot Assets allowing stablecoins is nice... But is it the best solution to exchange dollars💵 over Bitcoin  and Lightning⚡️Network? ❗️Spoiler: No Stablecoins like USDT over Bitcoin  is only a bit better of USDT over Ethereum or Solana. Even though Bitcoin is more censorship resistant than all its (pale) copies, Tether and Circle are the custodians of the dollar you think you own, and if they choose, or if they are forced too, they will freeze your funds. Moreover, Lightning Service Providers (LSPs) could become regulatory and technological choke points. If LSPs are influenced or strictly regulated, they might compromise ⚡️LN's decentralization and users sovereignty by enforcing compliance👩‍⚖️ KYC 🪪 and regulated stablecoin issuers over the ⚡️Lightning Network could even, by choice or regulation, prohibit their assets from transiting through unknown nodes 🪢 So, what is the solution to avoid censorship? 👉 1 answer, 3 letters : DLCs Discreet Logs Contracts (DLC) enable P2P 🤝derivative positions over #Bitcoin  and Lightning⚡️ They allow users to open/close positions, like shorts 📉, on BTC vs. USD. This stabilizes portfolio value by offsetting BTC volatility. How to use them? 👉1 answer, 5 bits : 10101 10101 creates USDP, a BTC derivates that keeps the value of USD. (https://10101.finance/) USDP, once fully launched, will be more sovereign 👑 more secure 🔒 more censorship resistant 🏦 than any stable asset ever create 💵 (yes more than US banknotes). Sources: 🇫🇷 🇬🇧
TRUMP 🗣️: "There in El Salvador 🇸🇻 murders are down by 70% ! Why are they down? Now he would have you convinced that's because he has trained murders to be wonderful people now. They are down because they are sending their murders to the United States" Here is why he's wrong 👇 1⃣ Homicide rate in El Salvador 🇸🇻 was 2.4 per 100k inhabitants in 2023, down 93% since 2019 and 98% since 2015. 2⃣ In the United States 🇺🇸 it was 5 per 100k inhabitants in 2023, down 50% since 1980. On top of providing wrong metrics (claiming there are more murderes in the US than before and that murders are down 70% in 🇸🇻), here Trump is clearly manipulating truth to serve his own agenda and prepare justifications for future regulations. PS: I am not pro Biden either ⛓️ https://x.com/aab_marius/status/1814256956648952053?s=46 image
Gm 👋 I recently talked about my study with @Davani. #Bitcoin , I shared some insights and thoughts. Here is the video, I hope you guys will enjoy it 🙏
Consensys recently published a letter to the SEC stating that Ethereum is more secure than Bitcoin because it would be more expensive to attack (~$34 billion versus ~$20 billion) 💸 Here's why this claim is incorrect: I find the logic behind Consensys's claim relatively dishonest 🤥 as it relies on the simplistic assumption that having money 💰 is enough to compromise Bitcoin. However, the security of Bitcoin is not measured by the monetary cost of an attack, but by its feasibility ✅ To attack Ethereum, one would need to possess at least 34% of the ETH staked🔒to attack the network, which would equate to about $34 billion, according to Consensys data.$34 billion represents a considerable sum, which few individuals would be able to gather. Moreover, this amount is likely to increase over time if the network gains adoption and if the price of Ether continues to appreciate 📈 This figure still seems underestimated to me, especially if we consider that such purchases would increase the price of ETH concurrently, also increasing the total actual cost of the attack 💹 Considering the hypothesis where it was the United States government 🇺🇸 that decided to launch such an attack, one might wonder why it would not choose to seize the ETH scattered here and there, including those staked on Coinbase, which alone represent 14% of the ETH staked. This would cost significantly less, but it is true that the attack could come from elsewhere 🌎 Regarding Bitcoin, Consensys claims that the cost of an attack is essentially based on the acquisition of computer hardware and the purchase of energy needed to power the machines 🔌 This is true, but the way it is formulated in the letter suggests it would be a simple process, almost reduced to placing an order for a few billion dollars with Bitmain.I think the $20 billion estimate is relatively accurate. •My quick calculations indicate:An S21 with 200 TH/s costs about $5,000 today 💻 •With about 600 EH/s, it would take 1.53 million S21s to achieve 51% of Bitcoin's hashrate 🔢 •Which equates to about $7.65 billion 💲 Note that this evaluation considers the current cost of the machines. The mass purchase of mining equipment would also increase their price, which would raise the total cost 🔝 Additionally, the buyer would have to obtain these machines before they become obsolete or the hashrate increases too much, otherwise, the cost would be higher. To this, maintenance fees, electricity costs, transportation of the machines, etc., must also be added ⚙️ However, a crucial detail overlooked by Consensys is the impossibility of acquiring 1.5 million S21s or equivalent models quickly. Manufacturers' order books are already full, and miners wait months or even years to equip their operations ⏳ The idea of quickly acquiring $8 billion worth of mining equipment is unfeasible 🚫 The only way to do this would be for the United States government, to take this example, to manufacture its own mining computers. This would require developing an alternative to market computers and especially the ability to produce 1.5 million machines! Where would it find the necessary raw materials? What other industry would need to be paused to allow this production? What would be the human, financial, and environmental cost of such an operation? 🤔 Consensys does not seem to have integrated all this into its letter.Moreover, the United States produces 4,500 TWh of electricity annually, while Bitcoin's consumption is estimated between 100 and 170 TWh. The country could theoretically increase its electricity production by 1.5% to cover this 💡 However, the same questions arise: What would be the human, financial, and environmental cost of redirecting between 50 and 85 TWh of electricity to their mining farms? 🌍 In short, the comparison by Consensys doesn't really make sense; it compares one network that relies on a currency to another that relies on energy ⚖️ Even if the estimates are correct, they do not faithfully represent the real cost of a Bitcoin attack