Global regulators built the FATF Travel Rule for a banking system still full of illicit finance. Now they are imposing the same surveillance architecture on Bitcoin. The rule was created by G7 countries through an unelected body in France. It was sold as a way to stop money laundering by forcing information to travel with every transaction. Decades later, the UN still estimates money laundering at 2 - 5% of global GDP. The model has failed in TradFi.

United Nations : Office on Drugs and Crime

Overview

Overview

Regulators now want to apply that same framework to Bitcoin, which is an open, auditable ledger with a completely different risk profile. Chainalysis’ 2026 Crypto Crime Report shows stablecoins accounted for 84% of illicit transaction volume in 2025, while Bitcoin is still being pulled into a surveillance regime designed for banks and centralised intermediaries and a financial system struggling to stop illicit finance at scale. https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2026-crypto-crime-report-introduction/ The Travel Rule forces firms to collect, hold and transmit personal information about the people behind transactions. This creates databases that link identity, transaction history and asset ownership in ways that expose ordinary users to hacks, targeting and physical security risks. FATF has updated it’s recommendations as part of a global push for payment transparency. As a result it is being expanded, embedded and normalised. This solves nothing but creates unprecedented harm by forcing more personal financial data to be collected, stored and shared. This clip is from the @You’re The Voice podcast with @Efrat Fenigson and Ben Samocha at Bitcoin Vegas last year. The warning has only grown more urgent. Bitcoin does not need TradFi’s failed surveillance architecture wrapped around it.

Jeremy Grantham’s latest CNBC comments are a perfect example of what happens when traditional finance tries to judge Bitcoin using an old framework. Had these comments been about crypto, I would have nodded along. Much of that market has proved to be speculative and altcoin season is not coming back. This was not a discussion about the crypto casino. He was speaking in front of a Bitcoin chart, while the segment drifted between 'crypto' and Bitcoin as though they were the same thing, which tells you how little precision sat behind the critique. Bitcoin deserves a more serious discussion than recycled talking points about crooks, dividends and supermarket payments. He called it a 'useless speculative mechanism' and said it would 'dwindle away' over decades, 'not with a bang but a whimper.' He asked why people do not use it to buy dinner or pay at the supermarket. Then came the line: “What it does is allows crooks to move money around without leaving a trace.” That is not dismissive… it’s wrong. It is not a stock, a company, or a bond. It does not have earnings, dividends, cash flow, a management team, or a board of directors, because it was not designed to be valued like those things. It is a decentralised monetary network with: - no CEO - no central bank - no political control - no bailouts - no off switch - a fixed 21 million supply that cannot be inflated on demand. The 'without leaving a trace' claim really misunderstands the system. Bitcoin is a public ledger and every base layer transaction is recorded. It is far more traceable than cash, which is why law enforcement, analytics firms and exchanges have spent years building tools around that transparency. The 'people don’t buy dinner with it' argument is also wrong and lazy. Gold is not judged by how often it is used at the supermarket. Bitcoin allows people to store and transfer value across borders, outside a system suffering from inflation, surveillance, debanking, capital controls and political discretion. Then there is proof of work, which Grantham dismissed as 'proof of unnecessary work.' That 'work' is what secures the network. It is what makes Bitcoin expensive to attack, impossible to rewrite and different from the thousands of tokens that can be changed, paused, printed or controlled by insiders. That is a stock market framework being applied to an open monetary protocol. Bitcoin has already survived bans, crashes, exchange failures, media attacks, regulatory assaults, energy panic, criminality narratives and repeated predictions of its death. That is not dwindling away. Grantham is not watching Bitcoin disappear, he is watching the old framework fail to explain it. So if the price worries you, remember what this actually is... A 17 year old monetary network separating money from state and challenging some of the oldest assumptions in finance. We are still early! Full article:

CNBC

Billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham says bitcoin will 'dwindle away with a whimper'

Jeremy Grantham renewed his long-running criticism of bitcoin, predicting it will gradually fade into irrelevance over decades.

Money detached from energy corrupts society. That is exactly what we are living through right now as endless money printing eats away at wages, destroys savings, funds government waste and moves wealth upwards. When money is broken the entire system built around it breaks too.  I love fairy lights and I think they are a beautiful use of energy because they bring joy, warmth and a little bit of magic.  Using energy to secure a global peer-to-peer money that anyone on Earth can use without needing government permission is one of the best uses of energy on the planet. Bitcoin achieves this through Proof of Work by tying money back to energy with a real cost which is exactly what makes it sound, permissionless and decentralised.  When money has a cost it cannot be printed endlessly by governments or banks so it forces discipline back into the system, reduces waste and malinvestment and helps people plan for the long term instead of being pushed into debt, speculation, and short term consumption.  Securing sound money through energy is not waste. It is one of the highest and most important uses of energy humanity can choose right now.

Hollywood loves a whistleblower story once the danger has passed. Eugene Jarecki’s The Six Billion Dollar Man arrives while the danger is still attached. Major platforms privately praised it … then said no. Now it’s bypassing them with Bitcoin and Nostr on June 27. My latest in Forbes featuring @Eugene Jarecki @jack Julian Assange @BTC Prague. Full article:

Forbes

The Julian Assange Film Streamers Wouldn’t Touch Turns To Bitcoin

A politically explosive Julian Assange documentary turns to Bitcoin and decentralized platforms in a fight over censorship, control and media gatek...

The UK's revolving door of prime ministers highlights a structural problem of chronic policy inconsistency and short termism. Persistent deficits, debt now around 95% of GDP and weak productivity have left successive governments with very little fiscal room. Governments too often behave as if the Laffer Curve is irrelevant, reaching for higher taxes while ignoring the point at which the tax base starts to shrink as capital, talent and businesses leave. Capital goes where it is treated best. The harder and more important work is supply side reform, fiscal credibility and productivity growth, but that has repeatedly been undermined by short political horizons. The speed of technological change, especially in finance and digital assets, only makes long term planning harder. Policy too often reflects well resourced lobbying rather than deep technical expertise. Without credible rules and a commitment to growth over short term fixes, any new prime minister will inherit the same constraints. https://www.ft.com/content/cd15556f-8f52-4b7a-8af9-578fdbbaa9c6?sharetype=blocked

Britain does not need another chapter of managed decline dressed up as stability. I was quoted in @CCNCitizens on what Keir Starmer’s departure could mean for the UK: “Keir Starmer’s resignation ends a chapter of broken promises, regulatory and authoritarian overreach and economic stagnation. Britain needs a shift to sound money, innovation, and better rules on energy, tech, digital assets and Bitcoin to avoid another cycle of decline. Stability comes from empowering individuals over failing institutions.” Full article: https://www.ccn.com/news/crypto/keir-starmer-resignation-uk-crypto-policy/

My great uncle Geoff helped build Colossus, the codebreaking machine used at Bletchley Park during WW2. Bletchley Park was also known as Station X and Colossus helped crack the Nazis’ highest level codes. He couldn't tell anybody what he had done during the war. For 50 years, he had to stay silent while his friends and family knew nothing about his work. Some even thought he was a coward because the work was so secret. It was only in the mid 90s that he was finally able to talk about it. When the secret came out, we were able to do a tour of Bletchley Park as a family while he told us of his work, and everyone was blown away by what he had done and kept quiet for five decades. He was a GPO civilian who started at Bletchley Park in December 1942 and stayed until May 1945 working in Block F Newmanry. He operated equipment including Colossus to decrypt German teleprinter ciphers the highest level Nazi Lorenz codes. The Colossus was the world's first programmable electronic computer, and they gave the Allies a massive advantage. That same world of codebreaking, computing and cryptography eventually led to the cypherpunk movement. Then to Bitcoin a money system built with maths computation and open networks rather than trust in governments or central banks. At a time when so many people feel Britain has lost its nerve, Bletchley is a reminder of what this country can do when it backs intelligence, engineering, courage and hard problems. We have done it before and we can do it again. As Nolan says in the clip ... we can't let England go to the dogs!

A claimed Bitcoin debt has reached an English court. In Hussain v Fix a British businessman says he paid expenses in pounds and dollars on the understanding that his German business partner would reimburse half in Bitcoin. The claim is for BTC 7.806501396. Miliangos v George Frank showed that English courts do not always have to convert claims back into sterling. The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 gave Bitcoin property status under English law. If parties agree to payment in Bitcoin, can a court order Bitcoin to be paid or will it end up back in pounds? Bitcoin is now moving into normal business agreements, expenses and contracts. Courts will have to decide what happens when those agreements break down. My latest article is live:

Forbes

English Court Asked Whether A Debt Can Be Paid In Bitcoin

A London court was asked if a claimed debt can be paid in bitcoin, testing English law as bitcoin becomes more involved in business agreements.

“Blades are neither good nor evil. They are merely extensions of those who hold them.” That one line explains Bitcoin, Tornado Cash, Samourai Wallet and privacy tech beautifully. Tools do not launder money, steal funds or commit crimes ... people do. Then he gets called a smartass and dismissed. 🤦‍♀️ This is the most accurate depiction of explaining Bitcoin to normies I’ve ever seen.

The UK government claims its social media ban for under 16s is about protecting children. Broadcaster Bev Turner described the policy as “the creaking of a digital cage door dressed up as a welcoming velvet rope.” Ministers are using child safety to roll out age verification that could force facial scanning and digital identity checks on everyone ... not just kids. This is how surveillance and control get sold as child protection while building systems that give the state and corporations unprecedented power over people’s lives. My latest piece in Forbes. @Derek Ross @Kubo.watch

Forbes

UK’s Under 16 Social Media Ban Risks Digital ID Expansion

The UK’s under 16 social media ban has raised privacy concerns over age verification, digital ID, surveillance and children moving to less regula...

At @BTC Prague I joined Gareth from The Starting Block to discuss UK policy, media misinformation and the hype around Bitcoin treasury companies. We discussed how mainstream media has damaged Bitcoin’s reputation and public understanding of what it actually is, and how policymakers still lump Bitcoin in with crypto. That means a protocol with a scarce asset is still being treated the same as meme coins. This is why Bitcoin only advocacy is so important. @Bitcoin Policy UK has been fighting this for years on a shoestring budget. While dedicated groups struggle for funding, most corporate capital still seems to prefer generalised crypto lobby groups or more fashionable market narratives instead. In the treasury companies space, the concept has seen a massive wave of copycats emerge over the last 18 months and we have not weathered a full cycle. Many are still experimental financial engineering often involving dilution, leverage and yield chasing. The term is meaningless ... a coffee shop or dog groomer can now call themselves a treasury company just by holding some. Holding bitcoin on the balance sheet alone does not make a company special. There still needs to be a real business underneath it, otherwise bitcoin is being used as the marketing. B Hodl gets a special mention here as an example of a company holding bitcoin while actually building infrastructure and solving real problems. We need education, sound policy and real examples like this instead of more blurred lines with crypto or untested fiat games. Bitcoin benefits from corporate adoption, but not all adoption is equal. @fnew @Gareth Jenkinson @₿Hodl Full interview below.

This is another great advert for bitcoin, Nostr and separating money and state. Nobody serious thinks social media is creating a happy, healthy environment for children. The harms from addictive apps, algorithmic feeds, cyberbullying, adult content, predators, body image pressure, endless scrolling and destroyed attention spans are obvious. The problem is that banning things rarely works, especially when technology is moving faster than the digitally illiterate policy class trying to control it. This will push children onto VPNs, fake accounts, encrypted groups, offshore platforms, unregulated apps and darker corners of the internet where parents have even less visibility. It risks turning a difficult parenting problem into a surveillance and identity checking regime for everyone, while giving families the false comfort that the state has 'solved' something it barely understands. We have already seen this pattern with online age checks. The rules come in, VPN use surges, people route around the system, privacy gets weaker, and the children most at risk are driven further underground. Australia’s under 16 ban has already shown enforcement problems, with children learning how to evade the controls rather than becoming meaningfully safer. The really depressing part is how familiar this all feels. We have seen it in bitcoin policy for years. The people with the worst incentives, the least technical understanding and the biggest lobbying budgets somehow end up with the ear of government, while people who actually understand the technology are ignored. It is a total shit show. The answer is not more state control over speech, money, identity and childhood. The answer is better parenting, better tools, better communities, better education, and less blind faith in governments with a proven track record of making problems worse. Handing more power to the state every time society gets scared is how we sleepwalk into something far more dangerous. Critics have already warned about enforcement, privacy and children moving to less regulated spaces.  Research on age verification and the UK Online Safety Act also points to VPN spikes and privacy concerns after age checks. At the same time, early analysis of Australia's ban suggests children often learn to evade controls rather than comply. When governments use 'protecting children' as the justification for sweeping digital control, the question is no longer whether they mean well. It’s whether they are building the infrastructure for something far more dangerous. #ForTheKids 🤔

Gatekeepers beware because Honey Badger don’t give a f*ck! Hosted a panel on how to fight back against CBDCs and surveillance. Interviewed @Eugene Jarecki in a Mercedes about his Assange documentary, the $6 billion price of truth and the fight against state power and censorship. Had a great chat with @Gareth Jenkinson from The Block about the UK and the risks around bitcoin treasury companies. Serious work is happening across culture, infrastructure, resistance, payments, media and privacy. BTC Prague was hopeful, serious, fun and full of energy. Huge thanks to @Matyas Kuchar, @Martin Kuchar and the @BTC Prague team ... You smashed it!! ⚡️

D++ is a genius. She reverse engineered (hacked) Mario Kart, read the game’s memory in real time, and connected gameplay directly to Lightning payments. As you race, sats stream to your wallet. The leaderboard updates live. Payments happen automatically. Every lap, overtake and position change can be reflected through Lightning in real time. What makes this so clever is that it transforms Bitcoin from something people are told about into something they experience. For many people, especially in places where scams have damaged trust, learning about Bitcoin through a game is far more powerful than listening to a presentation or reading a guide. Projects like this also help stress test wallets, uncover bugs, improve UX and show developers what’s possible when money becomes native to the internet. The most important thing… it’s fun… and fun is one of the most underrated drivers of adoption. Automated micropayments plugged in live. It’s designed to replace negative scam associations with nostalgia and fun. Apply directly to your own games.⚡️ The building and innovation at @BTC Prague is mind blowing!! This will inspire a new generation of builders to create games, educational tools and entirely new experiences powered by Lightning. ⚡️⚡️⚡️ @D++