BITCOIN BOX SCORE

Exchange Rate: $36,490

Market Capitalization: $712.9B

Hash Rate (90 days): 420.4 EH/s

Transactions (30 days): 11,723,791

Network Fees (day): 12 sat/vB

Bitcoin Dominance: 52.78%

What do these numbers mean?

Bitcoin needs YOU

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Bitcoiners,

"When you start creating an artificial currency... you're throwing your stink ball into a recipe that's been around for a long time, that's worked very well for a lot of people," Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, recently opined about Bitcoin. 

Munger's disdain is not new. In the past, he has referred to bitcoin as "rat poison" and "a venereal disease."

He hides that government money is also artificial and manipulable, a system that has benefited him and his friends. Satoshi immortalized this when he called out the crony banks on bitcoin's genesis block:

"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."

If bitcoin is rat poison, the corrupted fiat monetary regime is the rat’s nest.

If bitcoin is a venereal disease, that explains why it spreads like wildfire through a corrupted form of capitalism focused on pleasure seeking and immediate gratification.

Perhaps bitcoin is even a stink ball. One thing is for sure – it poses a threat to the established financial hierarchy from which Munger has benefitted.

When fiat billionaires criticize bitcoin with these colorful insults, are they inadvertently giving up the game?

With that, let's dive into the news.

NEWS

Interest payments on debt breach a trillion 😱

The U.S. budget deficit horror show has reached a (temporary) climax, with interest payments exceeding $1 trillion due to surging rates and Treasury calculations, doubling the amount since April 2022. As global debt surpasses $33 trillion, warning signs of fiscal crisis loom with potential for central bank bailouts.

It's time to be smarter than our leaders.

The fragility of the fiat system is evident. We can opt-out with ease, thanks to bitcoin.

China’s “economic miracle” hits roadblocks 🧱

China is facing significant challenges, including a demographic crisis, food insecurity, a real estate bubble, and a decline in foreign direct investment (FDI). This decline marks the first quarterly decrease in FDI since records began in 1998. Onshore yuan trading volumes have plummeted, and there is mounting pressure on the currency.

Communism doesn't work – what a concept.

As Beijing triages these self-inflicted wounds, its interventions distort markets and set up a precarious future for the world's most populous nation.

Maybe centrally planned economies aren’t sustainable after all? Ludwig von Mises wrote a book on this over a century ago, but sadly, the lesson must be relearned by every new generation.

WeWork files for bankruptcy 🏢

WeWork, a company that promised to revolutionize workspaces with technology, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Despite receiving billions of dollars from investors, it did not deliver results. Its business model relied on low interest rates, and remote work has made it difficult for the company to renegotiate leases.

One for the (econ) textbooks.

Perhaps more than any other company, WeWork exemplifies how speculative bubbles, fueled by easy money printed by central banks, can lead to severe misallocation of capital.

Gen Z is giving up on retirement 💼

Gen Z Americans prioritize present experiences and "living in the moment" over long-term financial goals, as evidenced by a recent Intuit Prosperity Index study. With 73% preferring a better quality of life to additional savings, many express doubts about their ability to retire, given the economic challenges and the high cost of living they face.

It's hard to save for the future with soft money. 

This trend among Gen Z reflects a broader issue. The struggle to save money in a currency that loses value raises doubts about traditional financial security for younger generations. Bitcoin fixes this.

BITCOIN ADOPTION CONTINUES

Bitcoin reached an 18-month high of over $37,000, fueled by institutional investment and safe-haven appeal, renewing optimism for continued growth in the dollar exchange rate.

Blink, previously known as Bitcoin Beach Wallet, has teamed up with Distribuidora Morazán, the second-largest distributor of goods in El Salvador, to launch a pilot program enabling bitcoin transactions for more than 40,000 merchants.

Marathon Digital Holdings has partnered with Nodal Power to initiate a bitcoin mining project in Utah, powered entirely by renewable energy from landfill methane, showcasing a sustainable approach to mining. 

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood champions bitcoin over gold as a long-term investment, highlighting its appeal to younger generations and untapped institutional interest amid a financial landscape increasingly wary of centralization.

FIOR Digital GmbH received a €2.1 million investment from Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Bayern Mitte for its platform, 21bitcoin.

HOW BITCOIN WORKS

Learn one key idea about bitcoin each week. This week:

Bitcoin is time.

Bitcoin is money, but it's also a global clock running consistently across a vast network of computers. It's a clock without a central authority, autonomously recording transaction sequences.

The network operates on "Blocktime," a concept where the blockchain ticks with each new block, much like the seconds on a clock.

Network nodes reach consensus on blocktime, agreeing on the transactions within each block.

The system manages time without any central timekeeper, ensuring trustless operation. The bitcoin ledger’s integrity hinges on the order of events – a critical part of any ledger. Control over this sequence could equate to control over funds.

Before bitcoin, synchronizing time in decentralized systems was unsolvable, making a decentralized ledger infeasible.

Satoshi Nakamoto's invention changed that.

Sometimes conceived as a distributed timestamp server, the Bitcoin Network settles the order of transactions independently through a mathematically stable balance of incentives.

Bitcoin functions ceaselessly, impervious to external control. Its timing mechanism is as autonomous and untouchable as the flow of time itself.

For a beautiful visualization of bitcoin’s timekeeping, check out Timechain Calendar.

COIN CHECK

Which popular cryptocurrency exchange filed for bankruptcy almost a year ago to date, on November 11th, 2022?

1. Mt. Gox

2. Quadriga

3. FTX

4. Celsius

Check your answer at the end of the page.

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ANSWER

3. FTX.

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