This is hands down my favorite meme! 😂 Bitcoin maximalists will definitely recognize themselves!

🚨 MAP UPDATE: KAZAKHSTAN I track how 140 countries treat Bitcoin: legality, self-custody, taxes, seizure risk. One interactive map. Verified against official sources. Kazakhstan's president recently signed a decree that forced a rewrite. Incoming: ⚡ 0% income tax on Bitcoin gains ⚡ Stranded gas → legal to power BTC mining ⚡ Amnesty path to bring offshore coins home Signed July 7. Rollout underway. The 3rd largest mining nation on Earth is positioning for better Bitcoin tax policy than most of the G7. The map shows which countries protect your sats, and which ones will seize them. Current score: 6 pro-Bitcoin. 11 hostile. 123 on the fence. Full Kazakhstan breakdown on the map 👇

👀 The sad reality...

Zero. Not lower. Not phased. Zero. Switzerland exempts crypto gains, unless you trade "professionally." A bureaucrat decides which one you are. Germany exempts them after a 12-month hold (§23 EStG). A clock decides. The US de minimis proposals capped around $300 per transaction. A threshold decides. Every "friendly" regime is the same design: an exemption with a leash. The only number that isn't a leash is zero. 0% on every sat, from the first block to the last, no clock, no cap, no permission slip. Rothbard said it in six words: "Taxation is theft, purely and simply." Notice he didn't add a holding period. They don't tax the printer. They tax the exit. 👀 Tell me why the IRS deserves a single sat of that, and be specific. 👇

While regulators are still arguing about definitions, bitcoiners are just... running the network. Are you running your own node? Be honest. 👇

The guy who spent a year building Bitcoin’s bridge into US law just walked out of the White House. Three days before the Senate vote that could finally give Bitcoin real regulatory clarity. No successor plan. No delay to the vote. Just a scramble. Here’s what happened 🧵 2/ The bill is the CLARITY Act — the market structure law that would finally hand the CFTC clear authority over spot Bitcoin and crypto trading instead of leaving exchanges to guess which regulator might come knocking. Floor vote: expected around July 20. 3/ The dealmaker was Patrick Witt, head of the White House crypto council since August 2025. He ran point on CLARITY, the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, GENIUS Act rollout, and digital asset tax policy — basically the entire federal Bitcoin agenda in one person. 4/ Witt’s last day is Friday. He starts Army JAG training July 27. He already delayed this once to stay at the table. The Army made clear a second delay wasn’t happening. Three days before the vote. That’s the timing Bitcoin got. 5/ What he actually built matters here. He brokered the stablecoin yield compromise that had banks and the crypto industry at war. He satisfied law enforcement’s demands on illicit-finance tracking — the exact provisions that were holding up bipartisan support. That institutional memory just left the building. 6/ Deputy Director Harry Jung inherits it all — CLARITY, the Reserve, GENIUS Act — days before a merged draft of the bill is expected and roughly three working weeks before August recess. Miss this window and the bill likely doesn’t move again this Congress. 7/ The number that decides everything: 60 votes. CLARITY needs to clear a filibuster. That means at least 7 Democrats crossing the aisle — in an election-adjacent Congress, on a crypto bill, during a leadership transition. 8/ The real fight was never custody or stablecoins. It’s ethics. Trump earned over $1.4B from crypto ventures last year. Warren is pushing to bar officials and their families from profiting off crypto. Lummis’s counter: this bill is “the only path that works.” That fight is still unresolved. It could sink the whole thing. 9/ Bitcoin doesn’t need Congress’s permission to keep producing blocks. It never has. But market structure clarity decides whether custodians, exchanges, and institutions in the US operate under one clear rulebook — or keep getting regulated by enforcement action. That’s the part actually on the line here. 10/ Here’s what won’t wait on a Senate vote either way: the IRS. Form 1099-DA is already live. Blank cost basis? The IRS can treat your entire sale as pure gain. One mislabeled wallet transfer can invent taxes you never owed — and most Bitcoiners don’t find out until the notice lands. CLARITY governs the exchanges. It doesn’t govern your tax return. That part’s on you, right now. I wrote the field manual for exactly this. Free the moment you subscribe: → What actually counts as a taxable disposal in 2026 (yes, the coffee) → The $0-basis trap that turns a clean sale into a CP2000 notice → Why a normal cold-storage transfer can get flagged as income → What self-custody actually keeps off the record — and what doesn’t → A best-to-worst state tax map + forms cheat-sheet Subscribe below. First email, no waiting. ⬇️

Funny thing about this meme: since 2025 it's not even true at the federal level anymore. The button still gets smashed constantly. Just further down the ladder now. What's the biggest sign the shift hasn't reached your state yet?

Starting October 1, buying Bitcoin from an ATM in Alaska means handing over your name, address, phone number, and email to a state database, every single time. That's not a bank. That's not an exchange. That's a kiosk. It's one of three stories in issue #63 of The Bitcoin Act: a housing bill that quietly banned the Fed from ever launching a CBDC (Trump never signed it, it became law anyway), and the Senate's three-week window to pass the bill that decides whether your self-custodied Bitcoin gets treated as a commodity or a security. I also broke down exactly what law enforcement can and cannot force you to hand over from a hardware wallet in the US, UK, France, India, and Indonesia. The short version: they can jail you in some countries for staying silent. They still can't move your coins without the seed. Would you still use a Bitcoin ATM knowing your ID goes straight into a database?

Banks: "trust us." Bitcoin: "verify it yourself." What finally made you stop trusting banks with your money?

Bitcoin doesn’t need Washington’s permission. It never has. But the jurisdiction war over who regulates it, SEC or CFTC, decides whether the exchanges and custody tools you actually use survive the next enforcement cycle. Tomorrow’s issue: → July 17, NYC: House Digital Assets Subcommittee field hearing on the CLARITY Act: the bill that would hand the CFTC exclusive authority over Bitcoin’s spot market and finally get the SEC off its back for good. → A São Paulo court just ruled AGAINST Coinbase in a $100K self-custody hack case, even though Coinbase never held the user’s keys. If this precedent holds, wallet software providers face strict liability for security they don’t control. Every self-custody dev needs to see this. → Polymarket odds on whether CLARITY actually becomes law this year. Still basically a coinflip. → Every major US regulatory move this week, translated into what it actually means for you, not policy-speak. → Global legal developments, no filler. → Sovereign Question of the Week: a reader’s self-custody question that most lawyers get wrong. My answer, with actionable steps, drops tomorrow. Not your keys, not your coins. Doesn’t mean the law can’t still come for the keys you control. Drops tomorrow. Link in bio. What’s your #1 legal question about holding your own Bitcoin? Drop it below. 👇

What about you, do you buy your Bitcoin on exchanges that require KYC? 👇

They're rewriting your self-custody rights this week. The merged CLARITY text drops any day. The Senate has ~20 working days left. Whatever survives the horse-trading becomes the law your stack lives under. Issue #62 of The Bitcoin Act, out now: ⚖️ Wyden fights to keep Section 604 — the shield stopping devs from being prosecuted as money transmitters. 🇫🇷 Bull Bitcoin drags the EU's DAC8 surveillance database to France's top court. 🏛️ BPI makes itself a defendant in the NY "abandoned wallets" case — using its own cold storage as standing. 🚫 A Fed CBDC is now banned. Trump didn't even sign it. Real risk vs. noise, labeled. Plain English, no legalese. And the first reader to open earns 2,100 sats. Link below 👇

Bitcoin doesn't care that your no-coiner friend still thinks it's "backed by nothing." What's the worst take you've heard from a no-coiner this year?👇

Since January 1, every exchange in Europe must hand your name, home address, and full transaction history to the tax office. Not just yours. Shared across every member state. One Bitcoin-only exchange just dragged France to its supreme court to kill it. Their CEO's words: KYC now means Kill Your Customer. Meanwhile in DC, Warren calls the Clarity Act a ticket to sanctions evasion. Full breakdown tomorrow, in my newsletter. Plus Numbers of the Week and every event on next week's calendar. First to open the issue gets 2,100 sats. ⚡ Honest question: if a government database links your Bitcoin to your front door, do you keep stacking KYC, or is no-KYC now a survival requirement? 👇

Every Bitcoiner be like… 👀

What’s your take on the exit tax? 👇

Every Thursday I show you what's new at The Bitcoin Act. This week: I turned 2 years of Bitcoin law into 6 field manuals, the playbooks I wish existed when I started self-custodying. ✅ The FinCEN Dossier: exactly what surveillance law collects on your Bitcoin, and who actually has to file what. ✅ The Legal Privacy Stack: the real line between privacy and crime under the BSA. ✅ The Bitcoin Inheritance Protocol: pass your stack to your heirs without probate or a forgotten seed phrase. ✅ Plus Self-Custody, Tax, and IRS Audit manuals. Written by a legal counsel. No fluff. Instant access. Which one do you need first, Privacy, Tax, or Inheritance? 👇

Thank you @Bittr 🐷💰 for this awesome meme! Don't you think it's true?

💥 A 30% fee to buy Bitcoin from a machine. North Carolina just voted 162–0 to end it. Some Bitcoin ATMs charge up to 30% per transaction. North Carolina just passed a law capping it at 12%. Not one lawmaker voted against it. 113–0 in the House. 49–0 in the Senate. The bill is on the Governor's desk right now. HB 920 — the "Virtual Currency Kiosk Consumer Protection Act" — puts kiosk operators under NC's Money Transmitters Act. Plain English: the companies behind these machines now answer to the Commissioner of Banks, like any other business that moves your money. Why lawmakers moved: → $389M lost to kiosk scams nationwide in 2025 (AARP) → 86% of those losses hit people 60 and older → 4,300+ fraud complaints in NC alone last year The machine isn't the scam. But it's where the scam gets paid. The classic playbook: a caller convinces a retiree the "banking system is failing." Withdraw cash. Feed it into a kiosk. Send it to the scammer's wallet. Once it settles on-chain, it's gone. No chargeback. No bank to call. What the law actually requires: → 12% fee cap → Daily limits: $2,000 for new customers, $5,000 for existing → Fraud warnings on every machine → Live customer service + receipts → Cancel any transaction before it's final → 30-day window to claim refunds on fraudulent transactions The alternative on the table was worse. One NC senator argued kiosks should be banned outright, like Indiana, Tennessee and Minnesota already did. Regulation at 12% beat prohibition at 0%. That's the real story: access survived. ⚖️ Kiosk operators call this a "quasi-ban." Consumer groups say 12% is still robbery. So which is it, a fee cap that saves retirees, or a soft ban dressed up as protection? 👇 One of them is about to become law in NC. The IRS already has your sales. It doesn't have your side of the story. "What They Can See": the free tax & sovereignty field manual for stackers: → what's taxable (spending sats = yes, still) → who reports what on you — and what self-custody keeps off the record → the 1099-DA traps that trigger audits → best-to-worst state tax map Free in your welcome email 👇

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It's so frustrating... don't you agree? 👇