Bitcast

10-year Treasury yields just tore through 5.27 percent, the highest print in 19 years, the S&P dropped 700 billion in a single session, and a sixth US bank quietly failed in 2025 — triple the pace of the last two years combined. Meanwhile Bitcoin shrugged it all off, closing above 84,000 for its best weekly close in eight months, and Strategy kept buying. The crew breaks down why gold and silver are suddenly getting hammered even as the debasement trade should be roaring, and gets into a genuinely wild tangent on America, AI abundance, and why building beats complaining.

In this episode:

• 10-year yield hits 5.27 percent, highest since the GFC era, with talk of a run toward 6 percent by November

• Nanobank becomes the sixth US bank failure of 2025 after 25 percent of its commercial real estate loan book went bad

• Gold down almost 4 percent and silver down 5.7 percent in a single stretch, and what that says about the "higher for longer" regime

• Bitcoin closes above 84,000, up 45 percent from June lows, and Wicked Smart Bitcoin's DCA data showing every historical buyer is still in profit

• Strategy buys another 1,665 BTC and repurchases 152 million in STRC, plus a debate on MSTR dilution and Bitcoin-per-share

• River Financial sues Blockstream Services Canada over a 6.7 million dollar termination agreement, with confusion over Blockstream's actual ownership structure

• Oracle's credit default swap spreads surge past 2008 levels amid stress tied to its AI data center buildout, plus Meta's data center bonds getting downgraded

• Bank of Canada holds rates at 2.75 percent, Mark Carney shifts a Starlink contract to a rival firm, and Stelco shuts its Hamilton steel plant for good

For the full conversation with charts, graphics and all the tangents, check out the video version of this episode.

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/CXVHx_Lntsk

A $351 million exchange hack, a bond market flashing 25-year highs, and Strategy quietly copying the competitor it used to mock with daily dividends — this week's Bitcast covers all of it, plus a wild cameo from a very confused "convert" named Walter and a former radiologist explaining why Bitcoin's price runs on three burners. Ben, Joey, Nathan and Brandon are joined by Adam Bitcoin and returning guest Dr. Jeff Ross for a wide-ranging rundown of what's actually moving markets right now.

In this episode:

• Strategy proposing daily dividends across STRC, STRK and its preferred stock lineup, and why Joey calls it proof the "balance sheet composition" pitch was always cover for chasing SATA's yield game

• The Bitget hack: $351.6 million stolen, a $464 million user protection fund covering it, and how it stacks up against Mt. Gox, QuadrigaCX, FTX and the Cold Card phishing losses

• Adam's "counterparty ladder" framework — why holding Bitcoin on an exchange is worse than a dedicated custodian, and the honeypot problem proof-of-reserves can't fix

• Tether's reported $183 billion USDT push onto the Bitcoin base layer, Morgan Stanley talks, and whether stablecoins are actually a top-of-funnel bridge into Bitcoin

• Dr. Jeff Ross breaking down the bond bear market, 5.2% ten-year yields, Bessent's "Operation Twist," and why AI data center spending is now competing with Treasuries for capital

• The "three burners" framework for Bitcoin's price: liquidity, US manufacturing strength, and leverage in the system, and where each stands heading into 2027

• A new proposed protocol for shielded, private Bitcoin transfers on the base layer using zero-knowledge proofs, with no soft fork required

• Jack Dorsey and Block joining the 402 Foundation to bring Lightning payments to AI agents

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/vjACKX23jYs

Bitcoin at $84,385 while the US 10-year Treasury just hit a 19-year high — and the hosts are asking whether the bond market is simply breaking. BlackRock published research arguing that AI agents will need permissionless, machine-native money to transact autonomously, and the crew has a lot to say about which asset actually fits that description.

In this episode:

• US Treasury yields hit multi-decade highs across the entire curve — 1-year at a 25-month high, 30-year at a 19-year high — while the Treasury Department quietly doubled its bond buyback program from roughly $2 billion to $6 billion.

• BlackRock's digital assets research paper claims AI agents will need "machine-native money" for autonomous microtransactions; the hosts debate whether that inevitably points to Bitcoin, and reference the Bitcoin Policy Institute's moneyforai.org report showing ChatGPT and Gemini favor stablecoins while Grok and Claude prefer Bitcoin.

• X/Twitter integrated ticker-based trading functionality, which the hosts read as a gateway to retail crypto speculation and prediction market gambling baked directly into the social feed.

• Tether confirmed it is exiting the EU after MiCA regulations would have forced 60% of reserves into commercial bank deposits — replacing US Treasury holdings with uninsured bank accounts capped at €100,000 per depositor.

• Bitcoin ETF flows flipped positive for the year despite bond market chaos, with Bitcoin holding near $84,000 while traditional markets struggled.

• The Blake2B fork continues its slow implosion: a node operator reported a Raspberry Pi would take 45 days to sync the new chain, and the project's lead developer responded "get a real computer" — directly contradicting the original argument that the fork was needed to keep node operation accessible.

• Umbrel released a major update adding an AI agent layer that lets users manage their personal server, install apps, and automate setup tasks through plain-language chat commands.

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/kVzOUgfjXvU

Bitcoin punched through $87K while wars escalate across the Middle East and Ukraine, shorts got obliterated to the tune of nearly $900 million, and Strategy quietly stacked another 950 coins — already up $6 million on the buy. Meanwhile, a custodial wallet breach and a clever AI trading bot scam are reminding everyone exactly why self-custody still matters.

In this episode:

• Strategy bought 950 more bitcoin for $174 million at roughly $79K average, pushing their unrealized profit to $8.75 billion after a swing of more than $20 billion from peak loss to current gain — and Joey finally admits he took a sizeable MSTR position that's up 26%.

• Bitcoin crossed its 50-week moving average at $86,300, historically the dividing line between bear and bull territory; the crew debates whether the four-year halving cycle is dead and why this drawdown looked nothing like previous bear markets.

• A data breakdown shows someone who held Bitcoin for a decade turned $1,000 into $135,000; someone who missed just the 10 best days each year ended up with $10 and change — a case for DCA over trading.

• US air assets including seven aerial refueling tankers and an MQ-4C Triton are operating over the Persian Gulf; Treasury Secretary Bessant announced Iranian airlines will be cut off from the US dollar system on September 23rd, threatening any airport or company that assists them.

• Blink Wallet paused services after an attacker drained a limited number of custodial accounts; the crew breaks down what good crisis communications look like versus what actually happened.

• Scammers used fake AI crypto trading bot tutorials on YouTube to trick 224 wallets into deploying malicious smart contracts, draining 274 ETH worth roughly $517,000 — all ETH, the crew notes.

• A Canadian woman described as an 83-year-old was administered assisted dying despite her daughter saying she cried for 45 minutes and said "I've made a mistake" when told what was actually happening Friday.

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/tTIsl_Qsks4

Bitcoin ripped through $81,000 in a single session, liquidating $300 million in shorts in four hours — and nobody can fully explain why, given that macro headwinds are still firmly in place. On the same day, Warren Buffett stepped down as Berkshire Hathaway chairman after roughly 60 years, closing out a career that spans the entire fiat era. The timing felt like more than coincidence to the Bitcast crew.

In this episode:

• Bitcoin surges past $81,000 with $300 million in short liquidations in four hours — the hosts debate whether it was supply exhaustion, a liquidation cascade, or markets reacting positively to Fed Chair Kevin Worsh's unusually brief, 15-minute press conference.

• The Fed hiked rates and the dot plot signals another possible 25 basis point hike in October — Arthur Hayes argues hiking with elevated government debt is actually stimulative; Dan Tapiero pushes back, calling the timing politically damaging for Republicans in the midterms.

• Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway chairman at age 96, handing the role to his son — the crew notes he took the helm in 1970, one year before Nixon's gold shock, and has been riding the fiat wave ever since.

• Mark Carney's newly elected Canadian government deepens ties with the EU while Canada sits last in G7 economic rankings — the hosts dissect what associate EU membership could mean for Canadian brain drain and capital flight.

• A bill in Congress would require ISPs, DNS providers, and VPNs to block piracy sites — discussed alongside local AI models like Qwen 3 running on consumer hardware and privacy tools including Obscura VPN and Nostr VPN.

• Google confirms a zero-click, zero-day vulnerability in Pixel phone cellular modems that requires no user interaction — update your Pixel immediately, including GrapheneOS users.

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/PQCokX1vti8

A hacked Flock license plate camera exposed 1.6 million images — despite the company's claims that footage couldn't be accessed even with physical device access. Meanwhile, the Senate killed the Clarity Act 49-50, the Fed hiked rates 25 basis points, and open-source AI models are quietly disappearing from public repositories. This episode is about who controls the infrastructure of your life, and what you can do about it.

In this episode:

• Fed governor Kevin Warsh explains why he hiked rates 25 basis points, citing nearly six years of inflation above the 2% target and a 12-month PCE reading around 3.6% in August — while Bitcoin barely moved, trading flat around 76K

• Trump publicly called for rates cut to 1% or lower; the hosts debate whether the Fed is simply chasing the two-year Treasury yield and whether the dot plot carries any real predictive weight

• The Senate voted 49-50 to kill the CLARITY Act; Joe Nakamoto argues it was primarily a stablecoin and altcoin clarity bill, making the failure less existential for Bitcoin specifically

• The US House advanced the American Reserve Modernization Act establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve, plus a separate measure exempting Bitcoin network fees from capital gains tax, passing committee 38-5

• Decent wallet flagged abnormal asset transfers affecting users, Core Lightning issued a security advisory on experimental features, and Aqua's new in-house swap solution Indra was immediately hit with a denial-of-service attack

• Foundation Devices Passport Prime discussed as a leading post-Coldcard hardware wallet option; Foundation also released tooling to let Ledger users migrate to their open-source platform

• Open AI-model repos being taken down on Hugging Face sparks discussion about torrenting as a comeback strategy for locally hosting uncensored models and media

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/0qy9y8Xp7xg

Big AI companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, and their CEOs Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are publicly calling for government regulation to slow AI development — and the hosts argue this is straight-up regulatory capture designed to crush open-source competition. Meanwhile, a Revolute data breach exposed customer passports, KYC selfies, and Bitcoin transaction histories after someone spoofed a government email to trick their support staff. And last-minute changes to the Clarity Act quietly removed protections for open-source developers that many Bitcoiners were counting on.

In this episode:

• Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and even Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders united behind AI regulation calls — David Sacks publicly called it a cartel move to freeze out competitors via compliance costs

• Bernie Sanders proposed legislation with up to 20 years in prison and a corporate death penalty for violating AI development pauses — compared to penalties for illegal nuclear weapons development

• The Revolute breach: hackers used compromised Italian law enforcement systems to send fraudulent data requests, running the operation for six months and collecting 147 gigabytes including customer passports, KYC selfies, and full Bitcoin transaction histories

• Electrum pushed new security patches after Bitcoin Red Team disclosures; Blue Wallet CTO flagged 45 app store crypto wallets with critical or high-risk vulnerabilities

• Clarity Act update removed the sunset on the ethics ban for politicians issuing tokens, making it permanent and enforceable by state attorneys general — but also stripped the open-source developer carveout, leaving non-custodial devs potentially liable if they can be shown to have known about illicit activity on their platform

• Samurai Wallet developers remain in federal prison; hosts detail how the FBI used the app from outside their New York office to establish jurisdiction, and how the devs face $240 million in forfeiture despite collecting roughly $6 million in fees

• The hosts recommend running local AI models now, pointing to tools like Bionic and devices like the DJX Spark as ways to stay ahead of potential open-source crackdowns

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/dw095j2bE5M

Blockstream is refusing to pay a ransom to recover 600 Bitcoin — worth roughly $46 million — stolen from the Liquid Network, and the community is split on whether that stance is principled or just bad negotiating. Meanwhile, inflation came in hotter than expected, sending Fed rate hike odds surging past 90% on both CME futures and Polymarket, and Brent crude blew past $108 a barrel.

In this episode:

• August CPI rose 0.4% after only 0.1% in July, pushing traders to price in a near-certain 25 basis point Fed hike; the hosts debate whether core inflation data actually justifies it or whether energy prices are doing the real work.

• Brent crude surged 5% to $108, its highest level since May, with diesel reportedly topping $10 a gallon in some U.S. markets — the crew argues rate hikes can't fix a supply-side oil shock.

• Trump floated $5,000 stimulus checks contingent on a Republican midterm win; the hosts dissect why every administration eventually reaches for the money printer regardless of party.

• Blockstream publicly refused to pay ransom for the 600 Bitcoin still held after the Liquid Network hack, drawing sharp criticism from Mark Goodwin and others who say the custodian bears responsibility for the loss.

• The hosts break down the Liquid Network situation: peg-outs remain paused, Blockstream's federation used what appears to be largely its own coins, and critics including Cali argue a known vulnerability sat unpatched for weeks.

• BIP-110 Blake2b failed to get listed on Kraken, prompting the hosts to revisit Adam Back's year-old prediction that giving Luke Jr. unchecked authority would backfire quickly.

• Ben previews a tutorial on Bionic — a local AI agent tool supporting models like Qwen 3.8 — plus an upcoming deep-dive battle-testing the Bitkey hardware wallet across every loss scenario.

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/NHuEKZ5MXI0

The U.S. Treasury just tripled its long-term bond buyback program to $6 billion — and yields went up anyway, with the 10-year note climbing above 4.85%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin printed its first golden cross since May 2025, and the Liquid Network hack is still unresolved, with roughly 600 Bitcoin under negotiation and decrypted messages from the attackers now going public.

In this episode:

• Joe Consorti breaks down why the Treasury's buyback program — buying long-end debt to suppress yields and give the Fed cover to hold rates — actually shifts the interest burden closer to the present, making the debt problem worse over time.

• Bitcoin's golden cross (50-day moving average crossing above the 200-day) is examined historically; Joe expects sideways chop until the Friday CPI print and the following Wednesday Fed decision before any meaningful move higher.

• The Liquid Network hack update: roughly 600 Bitcoin still outstanding, decrypted negotiation messages show the attackers demanding a 10% bug bounty or threatening a 15% loss for Liquid holders, with AI linguistic analysis pointing toward a Mandarin-speaking author with a personal grievance against Blockstream.

• Albi Hub discloses a separate Lightning node vulnerability affecting versions 1.7.0 through 1.18.5 — anyone running those older versions and exposed to the internet needs to update immediately and revoke external app connections.

• Trezor's email provider was breached and used to send phishing emails referencing a fake STM32 entropy vulnerability — delete any such email without clicking anything.

• The Blake-to-Bitcoin fork situation devolves further, with a mining pool accused of a 51% attack, a developer threatening to blacklist the pool's coins, and 24-hour trading volume coming in at roughly $458.

• Canada-U.S. trade war: Trump orders Canadian-made products removed from federal procurement schedules covering $50 billion annually, while Canadian premiers hold rallies and Joe and the crew reflect on Canada's lack of economic leverage.

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/t4Awj_xgioY

Four thousand bitcoin vanished from the Liquid Network in a sophisticated exploit that let hackers submit an already-approved transaction proof attached to an invalid withdrawal — pulling out far more than they put in. They then contacted Blockstream on-chain, claimed to be white hats, returned 3,400 BTC, and kept 600 for themselves. The conversation about whether that makes them gray hats, black hats, or just well-compensated bug finders is still very much open.

In this episode:

• The Liquid Network hack explained: how a proof-reuse bug let attackers peg out roughly 4,000 BTC by stuffing an invalid transaction into an already-stamped envelope, inflating outputs over inputs

• The on-chain negotiation between the hackers and Blockstream's security team, the 600 BTC they kept as a self-declared 15% bounty, and whether Jameson Lopp's theory about AI-assisted vulnerability hunting holds up

• A running list of recent Bitcoin infrastructure failures — Coldcard, BTC Pay Server, LND, Core Lightning, Bitbox, Ledger's SDK, SafePal, and now Liquid — and what diversification of custody risk actually looks like in practice

• Metaplanet CEO Simon's lengthy public statement addressing shareholder anger over the 10th series stock acquisition rights, Ragnar's criticism that 273 million dilutive shares hand 48% of potential upside to the CEO, and whether any non-MSTR Bitcoin treasury company has a durable value proposition

• A family killed in a targeted physical attack over 1.5 million dollars in Bitcoin, and a frank discussion about what wrench-attack risk looks like when prices keep climbing

• Germany's AfD surging to roughly 44% of the vote in Thuringia, the mail-ballot controversy that kept them short of an outright majority, and what the result signals for European immigration and border policy debates

• Scott Bessent's comment on the US dollar imbalance with Canada, whether it points toward deliberate currency devaluation to boost exports, and how Alberta's growing separatist energy fits into the broader North American economic realignment

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/Sod_SgRpMjw