Coinbase doesn’t actually have to buy or sell on-chain Bitcoin. They “Custody”. Because Deep-State connected Institutional firms are the “providers” (read “gateway”) for the overwhelming majority of BTC trades. Firms like Jane St, CME Group, et al. This means: Coinbase cannot be undermined like FTX and every other non-NGO exchnge. They’ve effectively collude with the firms trading paper Bitcoin w/o oversight. The Bitcoin 4-year Cycle was broken because Institutional trading firms traded fake bitcoin in collusion with Coinbase to suppress price. Ad nauseam. NOW - having suppressed the price (which is what these firms LITERALLY exist to do, i.e. asset-price manipulation), they’re buying back the fake-trade “deficit”, to off-set the increasing potential for an unexpected event to explode them, all of which is calculated by “quants” and then they’ll begin the whole fleece all over again. The very real “They” want the Bitcoin. Because they have all the tools to hold out until we die to continually take it from us. Time is nothing to them, just so they own this thing they can’t destroy that threatens them. tl;dr The price of Bitcoin is going to be suppressed for a very long time because Self-Custody, which is INSEPARABLE from Bitcoin, has simply been cast aside. It’s a Fiat asset now, and like Ft Knox, its all kayfabe and pretend anymore.

We all feel the hardship of these Times. Times in which we “live and breathe and have our Being”. We all experience this together, as Bitcoin Tribe. We will suffer. We always have. But none alone. Thus I Choose and Will continue to Represent Myself. (And also take Self-Custody, don’t be a Cuck).

The entire history of the various Institutions we summarize as Wall St has consisted of taking money from others. Not making money by investing in businesses. Taking money from others. The easiest faucet for this grift has LONG been termed “fleecing Retail”. And it’s paramount, because it’s so much easier than trying to battle each other that they’ve become an industry dedicated to doing it. If you doubt my words, do you doubt the Federal Reserve does the same thing by modus operandi? Go back and study “Wyckoff Distribution”/3-Drive Top, go back and read the history of the Internet “Bubble” where after a Generation was rekt “Wall St”/ Deep State had to work for years to lure the next generation back. They’d fleeced so completely they lost all of Gen-X (and destroyed & Centralized the internet revolution into a handful of controlled organizations almost overnight). This thing which we shouldn’t even refer to as “Wall St” anymore, because it is literally the Deep State, has gained control of Bitcoin. We don’t now how, but to pretend it hasn’t happened is idiocy. The Bitcoin price doesn’t reflect Reality, so by first principles, the Bitcoin trading isn’t Real - i.e. isn’t Self-Custodied. I’m so sick to my stomach right now.

There is inarguable manipulation happening in Bitcoin. And while it’s reasonable to rationalize it away, let’s be clear that: - that manipulation is intended to keep you from ever retiring on your BTC investments. - those front-runners now living on their Bitcoin investments are being forced to sell to the rhetorical “Wall St”. This is the game, and it is irreversible. Bitcoin Retail is being fleeced by an industry so cohesive and sophisticated it can issue vast paper Bitcoin, not get “FTX’d”, and then recover it - as an Industry - while driving the price ever lower, forcing the Retail to sell to them, ad infinitum. Plebs are losing the War. We are so out-classed by paper exchanges and little to no Self-Custody ethos that I cannot see Bitcoin undermining Fiat ever. Supporting it, yes, becoming the bedrock for it, as intended. But BTC is flowing into the coffers of Power, we are powerless, the US Dollar Overlords have so outclassed us that they are and will continue driving the price sideways and down for the rest of our lives if need be…and I see no other game-theory sovereign power in the world that wants to go against the US. I’m experiencing the “long, dark night of the soul”. I sense we have lost, that Bitcoin is becoming a State asset. I have little hope for our children. I’ve heard that when the Confederate supporters were losing the American Civil War, they began hiding their gold/silver in jars to protect it from the invading Union armies. When you start hiding your Money in hopes your kids can have it someday, you’ve already lost.

The last episode of S2 Fallout song captured my Bitcoiner mood rn so, so perfectly: “This is Worth Fighting For”

Name an asset - any in History - where: -Infrastructure build-out continually hits all-time highs -Adoption openly, verifiably increases -Network effect, feedback loops & buildout grow exponentially yet the value of that asset cannot rise. Paper Bitcoin is FUCKING RAMPANT

No market is valid anymore. No price-action is real. All algo/AI. Because there is no final-settlement. Larger and larger institutional “funds” get locked-in, no instant cash-out. It’s ALL paper money now, until something blows-up. “Not your keys, not your coins” isn’t a slogan. It’s a Law.

Paper Bitcoin throughout Wall St is inarguable. It will continue until game theory decides to explode Coinbase. Possibly an et al, cascading, but when you shoot for the King you best not miss. We’ll see nothing burger in Bitcoin price until Bitcoin demands it’s due. As it always has. There is no telling the time-frame, but it’s clear the fiat price is doomed until the next rug-pull event. Gird yur loins, pleb. GET YOUR MUTHAFUKIN BITCOIN OFF THE MUTHAFUKIN EXCHANGE!!

If I could ask everyone who reads this to take a moment to stop, breathe deep a few times, and speak into the air around you, “I wish the Best for Carla” @CARLA⚡️ then go on with what you’re doing. It won’t mean anything to you, but it will help her, even if you don’t know what I’m asking.

Something is fundamentally wrong with Bitcoin. Paper Bitcoin is clearly rampant. Lesser exchanges will fail before Coinbase, because they’re “off-shore” or unimportant or whatever. The first hit is coming, though, and I feel it’s soon, but it’s coming. Bitcoin needs to right it’s wrongs by revealing why Self-Custody was built into the protocol. So Self-Custody now, or go down crying. Because imo the retards are very near the high-water mark, and about to drown.

It’s inarguable anymore that there is clearly too much paper Bitcoin on Wall St. If you accept this, then the next argument is that Bitcoin is going to bring some of these firms down. A “next level” version of Mt Gox -> FTX, et al. Likely starting with something smaller than Coinbase. Maybe Kucoin? But Coinbase will likely be the Gov’t bailout high-water mark, and the Grand Discovery for the “treasury companies”. If so, this will implode virtually all non-Bitcoin crypto-exchanges, shitcoins will go to zero, and Bitcoin will plummet to shocking levels. For a medium-term time. $100,000 may be years away still. I may be wrong, I may be Cassandra, regardless: Self-Custody Your Goddamn Bitcoin!!! And if you’re living off it, you may want to hodl some Fiat.

Ebay is just drug trade/money laundering anymore.

Mark these words: Hollywood will be replaced by AI because their fiat incentives don’t recognize or crowd-source authentic talent. Hollywood is pay-for-play, and we all hate it. AI will be cool for a short while, but replaced by TV Series’ and Local Theatre again!. Performing Artists of the world: we’re coming full-circle in the next several years. People are going to yearn for live theatre again in a few years, and not just the pablum musicals. Real theatre (but not Shakespeare, because nobody likes Shakespeare).

Lightning network has so seamlessly integrated into my life I don’t even think about it anymore. Every On-Chain transaction I pause and think. Lightning, always works. Better through-put than Visa. View quoted note →

Vitalik Buterin just followed me on TwitX. I mean I’m totally comfortable knowing I’m not prolific or brilliant or persuasive. Yet it’s his OG account. It kinda creeps me out, ngl.

Anybody know how long Knots needs to download a blockchain? Because for me it’s looking like months. Have I done something wrong? It’s chugging along, but almost no peers. Like 2 or 3 at any time.

I want to put this out while I’m thinking of it: @BTC Sessions is rolling out a channel promoting sovereign tech use, which is a direction I personally will support. Also, I’ve been involved in a a project with a number of high-school age kids, and what strikes me was how almost all of them have gmail accounts. This leads me to believe these teens have no idea about NOT giving their identity over to provably parasitic corporations. So in this light: I wonder if there is someone in the Bitcoin space who would like to maybe work with, and support, @BTC Sessions as a side initiative to create education for young people on the importance of Self-Sovereignty? The early vanguard has a responsibility to teach the young.

It’s becoming clear to me that Self-Custody is immutable from Bitcoin. And yet fiat organizations and systems cannot accept Self-Custody. Therefore, inevitably, this is where either the next - or perhaps the next after the next - Bitcoin meltdown occurs. Denying (willfully or not) what is structurally inseparable from Bitcoin will end in never having owned Bitcoin in the first place. Again, inevitably.

We’ve not yet experienced a financial market halt/closure while Bitcoin was a significant asset in the fiat system. 2020 doesn’t count, but is likely our 1st data point. What happens when Gov’t wants to shut-down the “animal spirits” of the “free markets”, but traders gotta trade?

I don’t care if Ebola or Smallpox is the next big Pandemic. I’m maxing my credit card to fly 1st Class to dine at every Michelin restaurant I’ve ever dreamed of sneezing in. Y’all all are going down with me.