BITCOIN BOX SCORE

Exchange Rate: $109,720
Market Capitalization: $2.19T
Hash Rate (90 days): 91,003.7 EH/s
Transactions (30 days): 13,859,535
Network Fees (economy): 2 sat/vB
Bitcoin Dominance: 59.97%

What do these numbers mean?

Every "cycle" brings new siren songs promising shortcuts to wealth. This time, the traditional finance and crypto chorus sings about "real world assets," "tokenization," and "revolutionizing finance." But as Marty Bent reminds us: people don't need easier ways to speculate on strip malls and Treasury bonds. They need better money.

The crypto and traditional financial industries dress up old ideas with complexity so that they can claim they are novel or innovative. New ways to access to already-efficient markets and marginally faster settlement are not going to dramatically improve anyone’s lives. Meanwhile, the real revolution goes unnoticed: a value exchange network beyond the control of traditional finance.

When crypto and tradfi make promises about tokenized real estate and yield-generating securities, remember what actually solves the core problem. It's not exotic financial engineering. It's fixed supply. It's opt-out.

As long as the fiat monetary system incentivizes short-term, low-time-preference thinking, “hype cycles” will spin up to separate retail consumers from their hard earned capital, and funnel it into the coffers of large institutions. This can be observed even in productive industries – for example the Dotcom bubble or today's AI datacenter bubble.

Remember. Stay humble. Stack sats. The hype will distract billions. Don't be among them.

NEWS

Bitcoin as apex predator? Giant shark statue unveiled as symbol of dominance

At Bitcoin Alpha in Santa Monica, California, entrepreneurs unveiled "Bitcoinius Maximus," a great white shark suspended in a glass box under orange lights, christened "The Apex Predator of Money." The nine-foot sculpture, modeled after Damien Hirst's famous formaldehyde shark artwork, serves as a counterpart to New York's iconic Charging Bull statue and represents bitcoin's potential to engulf markets far beyond traditional finance.

Shark as bitcoin's spirit animal

Organizers plan to install the sculpture at Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade as part of a pop-up called "Living with Bitcoin." The shark symbolizes bitcoin's resilience. Sharks are among Earth's oldest species, having been going strong for many millions of years. Some species must continuously swim to breathe, a metaphor for bitcoin's 24/7 network uptime.

Repo market stress signals tightening liquidity conditions

The Federal Reserve's Standing Repo Facility drew $18.5 billion in a single day in mid-September 2025 – its largest draw since inception – signaling renewed strain in money markets. SOFR rates climbed to 4.42 percent amid tightening funding conditions, and related benchmarks like the Tri-Party General Collateral Rate have risen in tandem, hinting that banks' reserves cushion may be thinner than advertised.

Central plumbing creaks as the buffer narrows

Unlike the 2019 repo crisis that spiked overnight rates to eight percent in days, today's friction is gradual but directional. Treasury settlements, tax deadlines, and surging short-term debt issuance are draining cash from dealer accounts just as regulatory capital rules constrain banks' capacity to absorb shocks. The system remains functional but increasingly delicate – a warning light rather than a five-alarm fire.

Trump pardons Binance founder CZ

U.S. President Donald Trump granted a pardon to Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, Binance's founder, on Thursday, months after Zhao confirmed he'd requested one. Zhao pleaded guilty in November 2023 to violating the Bank Secrecy Act, served four months in prison in 2024, and paid a $50 million fine as part of his plea deal. Binance itself settled with the U.S. Department of Justice for a record $4.3 billion.

Another step toward industry rehabilitation

The pardon represents a reversal from the Biden Administration's heavy-handed approach to enforcement and signals the Trump administration's commitment to supporting the bitcoin and crypto industry. With CZ now able to conduct business operations in the U.S. without legal restrictions, the world's largest crypto exchange is likely to expand stateside operations and integrate deeply into the American financial system.

Newsmax builds bitcoin treasury

Publicly traded media company Newsmax approved a plan to build a digital assets treasury centered on bitcoin (and President Trump's official meme coin), allocating up to $5 million to acquire both assets over the next 12 months. The move comes as analysis reveals Trump himself is now one of the world's largest bitcoin holders, with an estimated $870 million in bitcoin.

From bitcoin skeptic to largest holder: the Trump effect

Newsmax joins Trump Media in establishing corporate bitcoin reserves, with Trump Media already ranking in the top 10 largest publicly traded bitcoin holders after acquiring $2 billion worth earlier this year. Trump's personal bitcoin accumulation, combined with his administration's Strategic Bitcoin Reserve initiative and pro-bitcoin regulatory appointments, has created a powerful alignment of incentives between the president's personal wealth and U.S. bitcoin policy.

BITCOIN ADOPTION CONTINUES

Moon Inc. raised $8.8 million to launch bitcoin prepaid cards in Thailand and South Korea, simplifying bitcoin acquisition and transfer for everyday users across Asia.

Japan's FSA is planning to allow banks to hold, trade, and operate bitcoin exchanges with strict risk controls.

Tesla booked an $80 million profit on its 11,509 bitcoin holdings in Q3 as the price appreciated, demonstrating how major corporations are capturing value from bitcoin treasury reserves.

BitcoinOS raised $10 million led by Greenfield Capital to deploy zero-knowledge proof technology enabling smart contracts and programmability directly on bitcoin mainnet.

Ark Labs launches Arkade, a Layer 2 protocol enabling instant lending, trading, and stablecoins directly on bitcoin without sacrificing security or changing bitcoin's core.

BlackRock launched IB1T, a physically-backed bitcoin ETP on the London Stock Exchange.

Aureo raised $1.1 million to offer institutional-grade bitcoin custody and advisory services tailored for Latin America's high-net-worth individuals and family offices.

Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced economic stimulus measures that BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes believes will trigger Bank of Japan quantitative easing, potentially driving bitcoin to $1 million.

Bull Bitcoin launched BULL Wallet, a privacy-first, bitcoin-only mobile wallet globally on iOS with Lightning Network support, atomic swaps, and Payjoin integration for enhanced censorship resistance.

HOW BITCOIN WORKS

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

Clarity is a burden

To be right about bitcoin early in its lifetime is to accept a peculiar punishment. Seeing so much dysfunction in the world which could be fixed with bitcoin can be frustrating. Some bitcoiners must even endure ridicule from people whose opinions carry weight in the broken system you're trying to fix. This is a psychological toll that bitcoiners have paid since 2013, or 2011, or whenever conviction first arrived. It's not a badge. It's a burden.

What makes this burden bearable is understanding something fundamental: bitcoin doesn't ask for permission to be right.

"In a world addicted to 'because I said so,' bitcoin replies, 'because it was done.' The protocol waits without complaint, producing a new block every ten minutes on average, indifferent to narrative cycles and immune to editorial mood," writes bitcoin VC Ten31.

This mechanical truth – “tick-tock, next block” – will eventually be regarded as obvious. Satoshi knew this. The system was designed for people to be right while the world was still wrong.

But here's what's rarely discussed: the cost of that clarity. Bitcoiners often describe their journey as one of conviction meeting reality. But the reverse is also true. Reality – messy, chaotic, governed by political incentives and fiat arithmetic – resists clarity. Being right in such an environment doesn't feel victorious. It feels lonely. It feels like holding a truth that the system's beneficiaries have no reason to accept.

The people building in bitcoin right now understand something about this burden. They're not building because they hate the old system. They're building because they've internalized that bitcoin doesn't care about their hate. What matters is creating something more useful, transparent, and fair. This is why the early believers survive: they learned to separate the righteousness of being right from the patience required for being believed.

Bitcoin wasn't designed to vindicate early adopters. It was designed to work whether anyone believed or not. The revolution won't arrive as recognition. It will arrive as inevitable.

COIN CHECK

How many times has bitcoin been declared dead by various obituaries?

A. 2,100 times
B. 210 times
C. 430 times
D. 440 times

Check your answer at the end of the page.

FROM THE MEME POOL

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ANSWER

D. There are 440 obituaries found on the humorous website bitcoin.deaths.com which collects data on bitcoin obituaries written by the media.

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