It is 848 AM Pacific Daylight Time, it's the 26th day of March 2026 and this is episode

1286 that's a lot of sixes of Bitcoin and it's me, your host David Bennett, I'm gonna

bring you all the news about Bitcoin and macro from around the world today.

We're gonna be starting with US midterms, digital assets are gonna be playing a part

in the decision-making progress or the decision-making potential as well as Iran because we've

slipped under $70,000 for the price of Bitcoin because nobody knows what the hell we're

gonna do in Iran.

I mean, back in the day, the Iraq war, there was this narrative.

This woman sits down in a chair in a Senate hearing or something like that and she's the

woman that said Saddam Hussein is ripping infants out of their incubators and throwing

them on the floor and we bought it hookline and sinker.

It was a lie, it was a complete lie but it was the narrative that started all the dominoes

falling so that we could go into Iraq and the American people were like raw raw let's

go do this thing.

We had a narrative that was clear even if it was a lie and I'm not I'm not saying that

it's good.

It's a lie is a lie is a lie.

But here with Iran, we don't know what the hell's going on with this.

We've got way too many mixed signals coming from way too many media outlets, nobody has

a definitive narrative and markets are reacting appropriately.

They're freaking out because nobody knows what the hell to do.

So that's one of the reasons why we've got problems with oil prices are going back up

and in lockstep in inverse lockstep Bitcoin price is going down.

It's amazing to watch the charts plotted against each other for West Texas intermediate

and the price of Bitcoin, especially if you do it and I know it's not good to do it

on the to look at minute charts, you usually look at hour or day or week or month.

But if you look at a minute chart of the price of Bitcoin plotted against the price of West

Texas intermediate or even Brent Norse crew, it's really indicative of just how tightly

the inverse relationship really is between those coin base and Fannie Mae announcing some

really big news for home buyers.

Then we're going to talk about the White House clearing a proposal to allow 401k retirement

plans to invest directly in Bitcoin, but coin base remains in the news in the second

half.

They're opposing the clarity act again, while Morgan Stanley moves closer to their

Bitcoin ETF launch and a court rejects a developer's bid to shield his software from certain

laws and that happened in my home state of Texas.

I'm not not really happy about it, Mara sells Bitcoin, yep, they are trying to get rid

of a lot of their debt and they sold a lot of Bitcoin to do it.

And that's not helping the price of Bitcoin this morning either because it's this morning

when the news first came out.

And I'm seeing the Mara spike down.

I can actually see it happen in real time on the chart.

It's kind of amazing to watch.

And Nvidia, if we have time to get to it, Nvidia is getting sued.

Class action lawsuit has been certified.

So the people in the class action lawsuit have been given standing in the court to file

a real lawsuit against Nvidia and we'll tell you why, but first US midterms pack major

digital assets wallet as stand with crypto preps their strategy.

Jesse Hamilton from CoinDesk, Congressional Republicans are already on the ropes.

In this year's US midterm elections in Congress is likely to shift in ways that deeply

affect crypto efforts.

So advocacy groups stand with crypto is gearing up with a slate of candidate endorsements

and a new political poll that says neither party has a majority advantage as crypto's

best advocate.

I think they're probably a little distract.

Stand with crypto established initially by Coinbase as a pro crypto group populated by

retail investors is known for its political advocacy, including maintaining grading systems

for US politicians.

It announced endorsements in six battleground races on Thursday back in Congressional

incumbents such as Republican Zach Nunn in Iowa, Democrat Don Davis and North Carolina

who have both been supportive of the industry.

The organization will deploy efforts to marshal its membership to vote and will also pay

for media campaigns into other districts that said it will oppose politicians with records

against crypto interests and more races will be named as the year goes on.

In these consequential elections stand with crypto commission day survey that outlined a

sense of crypto owning voters in battleground states, the results released on Thursday

show that neither the Republican nor Democratic party has locked down a majority who think

they're better for the industry though Republicans are favored 45 to 26 percent according

to the impact research study conducted last month.

The snapshot of potential voters, which had a margin of error of 4.4 percent said crypto

enthusiasts were highly motivated to cast ballots this year and 64 percent of those who

hold crypto say they're enthusiastic about supporting pro crypto candidates.

These midterms could bring significant consequences for the industry.

Even if Congress finishes the digital market at digital asset market clarity act before

the November general elections, a number of other crypto legislative or legislative needs

remains including a tailoring of the US tax system for crypto and the establishment of

a US strategic Bitcoin reserve that president Donald Trump ordered, but it's very likely

that Democrats will be running at least one of the congressional chambers by then and crypto

may not be as high a priority as it's been for Republicans.

Wagers at prediction markets firm Cal she have the chances of Democrats taking the House

majority at more than 85 percent.

The odds for the more difficult Democratic path in the Senate is considered closer to

a coin flip.

That would be 50, 50.

I think Trump lost the midterms with this Iran action.

Now he still has a chance.

He really does.

He's got a real good chance of having the people that he wants to be sitting in the chairs

that he wants them to sit in, come midterm elections if he can figure this Iran thing

out, but I'm not sure that's going to happen.

How long were we in Iraq after butch blew the flag mission accomplished on the aircraft

carrier years?

We were there for years.

And in many cases, people will argue we're still kind of there.

Private contractors and whatnot.

But that's neither here nor there, what's going on right now is Iran.

Is it going to end?

If it does, if he can sow this, let's say the final blow that they're talking about,

which we'll get to in a minute actually works.

And we've got this mess cleared up by, oh, I don't know, close of markets on Friday tomorrow.

And it stays that way.

We've got it resolved.

It stays resolved.

It doesn't, it doesn't flash back up into fire.

Then then Trump has a really good chance of being able to flip and take or remain in control

of House Senate.

And of course, the executive branch, but we don't know.

Nobody knows what the hell's going on in Iran.

But there is one US congressman that knows what the hell's going on in his office.

His band staff from trading on prediction markets, Vizmaya V, has it from decrypt.

A prediction market analyst says more congressional office offices will likely follow Massachusetts

Democrat Seth Moulton's lead after he became one of the first members of the Congress

to ban his staff, not all staff, his personal staff, his guys, his office staff, ban them

from trading on platforms like polymarket and calcium, effective Wednesday, rep Moulton's

office wide policy prohibits all staff, including district legislative, communications and operations

personnel from trading or holding positions on political, legislative, regulatory or geopolitical

outcomes or on any information learned in an official capacity.

Quote prediction markets have become a playground for corrupt insiders who are able to place

bets on things like election outcomes and wars and even the deaths of public figures.

This is creating a perverse incentive structure that poses a genuine threat to American society

today, Moulton said in a statement.

The band arrives amid a growing push by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to crack down.

On insider trading and prediction markets, a concern that has arisen as anonymous traders

have posted outsized gains on politically sensitive events, fueling suspicions that government

insiders are caching in on non-public information.

Quote, I think everyone is very conscious of the potential for and optics around insider

trading around government actions, prediction market analyst Dustin Gooker told decrypt

noting that he expects a lot of other congressional offices will take similar actions.

Quote, I think it's quite clear that insider trading on the things going on in Washington

isn't kosher or welcome at CFTC regulated prediction markets creating clear and meaningful

penalties by law would make it abundantly clear, though he acknowledged some may still

attempt it.

Also on Wednesday, representatives Adrian Smith and Nikki Bedezinski introduced the predict

act or the preventing real-time exploitation and deceptive insider congressional trading

act.

Well, that's all we really need to know about this.

We've got at least one US congressman who's put down the band hammer and he's told his

staff, no, you're not going to do it, but here's the thing, I've been really critical

about prediction markets like calcium and polymarket because one of my arguments is that it

doesn't, like, he was like calcium spokesperson or CEO said something along the lines of,

it uncovered these prediction markets uncovered the truth and I've been pushing back pretty

solidly against that, however, I'm up for being wrong and here's a way that I think that

I'm completely wrong.

If we start seeing markets, let's say we start seeing markets that are made around, oh,

I don't know, the assassination of, like, let's say that the naval admiral over in Iran

got blown blown to bits last night, I think it was last night.

I can't remember his name right now, but it's big news in the morning.

We've taken out their naval commander, which I presume is like admiral level kind of thing.

Let's say that he's not dead yet, let's say there's a prediction market on his death.

Now I know calcium, polymarket aren't going to allow death prediction markets anymore

or they've said so, but let's pretend that they're doing that and just scale it down

to something not so lethal in your own mind.

And let's say there's a, all of a sudden there's a, like, it jumps from, I don't know,

a 50-50 chance this cat's going to get blown to bits.

And within one hour, it goes to 94% likelihood that this guy is going to get blown to bits.

Now I start looking at that and saying somebody inside somebody's office in the United States

government knows what's about to happen and this guy is going to get attacked.

In a way that kind of does uncover the truth.

But who stands to lose really lose if that kind of thing becomes widespread?

The United States government and elements of it because at this point, now their plans

are being telegraphed to the entire world via prediction markets.

So this, maybe I'm wrong.

I still don't think that I'm really all that wrong about, I don't know, maybe a football game,

but maybe I am.

But in this particular case, these geopolitics things, maybe it does uncover a truth.

And by so doing is uncovering a truth that nobody in a national or federal government

ever wants to see uncovered until the thing actually happens because now a run

could be using count monitoring, calcium, polymarket and going, hey, look, there's a,

there's, it used to be a 10% chance that they were going to blow up their oil refineries on car

island. That's now jumped to 98%. That is an intelligent signal.

It's no wonder that this congressman is like, you will not engage in any of this stuff.

So again, I'm up for being wrong about certain things and in this particular case,

given these particular circumstances, I think I'm wrong about prediction markets.

Maybe they really do uncover the truth.

The truth is that Bitcoin is slipped under $70,000 per coin, though.

Pentagon is preparing their final blow in Iran. Oh boy, let's see what this is about.

A cash gear a math from decrypt is writing this one.

Bitcoin slipped under $70,000. Thursday morning amid reports that the Pentagon is preparing for

a final blow in Iran. The cryptocurrencies recent string of higher lows faces its first major

test as President Donald Trump's five day pause of strikes against Iran expires tomorrow.

With Axios reporting that the US military is developing options in Iran that could include

the use of ground forces and a massive bombing campaign.

On prediction market, myriad, here we go, owned by decrypt parent company Dastan,

users now place a 60% chance on the US boots on the ground in Iran before May.

Up more than 10% on the day, see right there.

Up more than 10% on the day. Maybe that is uncovering a truth. A truth nobody at the

Pentagon really wants us to know. They're just saying, hey, we're preparing.

But maybe somebody in the office says, dude, we're beyond preparing, dude. We are in the process

of giving orders. Who knows? But Bitcoin has outperformed gold in US stocks since the war began.

The Pentagon's reported preparations signal that a further escalation is likely to increase uncertainty

and impact the leading crypto's directional bias. Bitcoin's higher lows since February 24th,

a pattern often associated with accumulation could face invalidation, short-term holders,

who bought within the last month carry a cost basis of approximately 70,200, marking the developing

support floor according to a glass node report. However, the accumulation cluster at 70,200

remains modest in size. Quote the higher probability of a breakdown below this level cannot be

dismissed until a more substantial base of committed buyers is established. Now, when this,

that's the end of the article, when this was published, this was right before Mara released

their news that they sold a lot of Bitcoin. And now we are down below the 70,200. So it's a

possibility that you might see leverage get liquidated. And there's always the possibility of a

cascade down because as you get liquidated, you have to sell Bitcoin that puts pressure on the price

and people that are like holding leveraged, you know, longs that are kind of underneath you,

then they get wiped out and then they sell and then they get people below them get wiped out

and then they sell. And it's like a, it's called a cascade, right? It's, it's possible.

But you just never know. And with the lockstep of oil with Bitcoin,

somehow or another as oil does, what oil does and Bitcoin being so seemingly chained to it,

that might actually give us some relief. Even though oil moves up, Bitcoin moves down,

the tight correlation between those two things, that there, there might actually be some relief in

the fact that oil and Bitcoin is chained so heavily together over the past couple of weeks.

Well, Bitcoin's not dead yet. However, if somebody in your life has passed, I got a new

interest into the circle P called Everstone BTC. You can go get that, you can go see their website

at EverstoneBTC.com. That's EverstoneBTC.com. What is it? It's memorials on the blockchain.

And I know, I know some people will just go, eh, but to other people like people that that

announce their, like, you know, how many babies have been born since I've been in this space?

How many babies have been born that the announcement of a child's birth on something like the old

Bitcoin Twitter and now on Noster comes with the block height? Well, EverstoneBTC allows you to

actually engrave for all time in Bitcoin in a responsible manner. I might add your loved ones

passing words that you might say about somebody that you love. Somebody's name that you just

want written for all time into something that will be here for all time. That's EverstoneBTC.

So how this works is you write your tribute. You share their story in your words. You add a photo

that captures who they were. Then EverstoneBTC creates a fingerprint. Your memorial then gets

a unique digital signature like a tamper proof seal. Then it's recorded permanently because that

signature is written to the Bitcoin network, the same system running 24 seven since 2009,

and it's yours forever. Download your memorial viewer. It works offline with no account or internet

needed ever so you can attach and look that particular block up. Look up that transaction.

And inside that transaction will be whatever it is that you put about the loved one who has passed.

Now there's a lot of people that have passed in my life lately and I'm actually very much

considering considering doing this. Is it for them? No. It's for the people that are left behind

and the people who are to come. You know what would be really cool is if a question I never

asked my grandmother was what was your mom's name? I don't know. This is a bad situation

and it's getting worse at least in the West and specifically in the United States. We don't really

know our lineage doing. We don't know really how many you know who came who what was my great great

grandfather's name? What did he do? You know there's ever stone BTC is sort of like the first

chink in the armor of maybe maybe something really important as important as family lineage in a

very very responsible manner and I'll get to that here in a second can be put onto something that is

indelible. It's just there forever. Why do I say why do I say that they're doing it in a responsible

manner? The fingerprint is light. You can't write you can not going to be able to just write the whole

you know eulogy and whatnot like that. You can't just load up everything that you know about

about the person that you've lost and shove it into blockchain because people will start really

screaming their head off. They are very very very responsible. Prices are such for a tribute that's

500 characters only one photo a Bitcoin time stamp in the offline viewer is $79. They do take

Bitcoin by the way a memorial 2000 characters five pictures a Bitcoin time stamp the offline viewer

and a QR code for 149 and legacy is unlimited text 20 pictures a Bitcoin time stamp offline

viewer QR code and priority support. What's great about this is that once this is on and you've got

the offline viewer you'll always be able to see this particular memorial go to everstonebtc.com

that's everstonebtc.com I actually have some codes if you want it if you want to try it out you can

use one of the codes that I have you'll have to get hold of me on Noster or even Twitter for that

matter just make sure that I see it or email me at david.binit.c at gmail.com and I'll I'll pass you

one of the codes that everstonebtc has given me go to everstonebtc they are the newest member of

the circle p all right coinbase and fanny may are going to enable crypto backed mortgages

this is steven graves writing for decrypt fanny may is one of the largest mortgage

holders and providers in the united states be aware this is like the largest one ever

and they will now accept cryptocurrency backed mortgages for the first time allowing perspective

home buyers to pledge bitcoin or stablecoin usdc as collateral for down payments through a partnership

between coinbase and mortgage firm better home and finance. The program first reported on by the

Wall Street Journal enables borrowers to transfer their digital assets from coinbase to a better

custody wallet while retaining ownership avoiding the need to sell crypto and trigger taxable

events for usdc holders the structure allows them to continue earning rewards while their assets

serve as collateral the mortgages will carry rates 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points higher than standard

30 year loans depending on borrowers profiles and I guess their credit score according to a spokesperson

for coinbase unlike typical crypto lending products the loans have no margin calls if bitcoin drops

in value the terms of the mortgage remains unchanged and no additional collateral is required

borrowers face liquidation risk only after 60 day payment to link would see under term similar

to those of conventional mortgages mortgages I have to pause this is honestly this is kind of amazing

you don't get liquidated if the value of the crypto of the bitcoin or whatever that you've pledged

goes below a certain point they're just like hey can you still make the payments that's all they

care about honestly that is a hell of a release relief valve right there I mean wow that's kind of

amazing well I hope that's not a I hope that's not a mistake in you know the spokesperson

statement because that's a big deal man anyway the US housing chief ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

to prepare for crypto assessment in mortgages last year with the housing regulator studying crypto

holdings in the mortgage qualification process major lenders have increasingly shown interest

with seven hundred and seventy eight billion dollar mortgage lender new res announcing earlier

this year that it was assessing bitcoin and shitcoin number one for mortgage qualification

as part of broader institutional adoption so not anything left to the story on that one

but Fannie Mae allowing bitcoin as collateral for a home and not liquidating

if the price falls and they that they're it doesn't even seem to be a floor like let's say that

bitcoin was a hundred thousand dollars I want to pledge one bitcoin so that I can put a hundred

thousand dollar payment you know down payment on a house or whatever or you know or or get a mortgage

and then all of a sudden it drops to fifteen thousand dollars according to this they still don't

liquidate me they're just can you still make the payment well yeah make yeah I can make the

payment okay well then that's fine we'll we'll we'll still hold it as collateral that's really

amazing and it's very very surprising as well I'm kind of shocked which means that I'm going to be

watching intently to make sure that Fannie Mae wasn't talking out of the side of their ass because

that's again amazing as well as this news the White House clears review of a proposal to allow

crypto in 401k retirement plans this is coin telegraph the White House office of information and

regulatory affairs has completed its review of a DOL Department of Labor proposal that could

reshape how 401k fiduciaries evaluate alternative assets including digital asset exposure

the OIRA's website shows the review concluded marks the 24th with the action marked consistent

with change and the proposal clarified or classified as economically significant the DOL is now

expected to publish the proposed rule for a standard 60 day public comment period which is

usually followed by revisions and the issuing of a final rule the proposal follows president

Donald Trump's August 7th 2025 executive order directing federal agencies to expand access

to alternative assets and 401k plans including exposure to digital assets through certain investment

vehicles the order directed the DOL to reevaluate restrictions around alternative assets in

defined contribution plans including digital assets private equity and real estate it also

called for interagency collaboration between the US Treasury Department and the Securities and

Exchange Commission on supporting rule changes so this is now one step closer to becoming a reality

where all 401k programs in the United States would they don't have to they would be able to

allow Bitcoin to be part of that 401k retirement some I guess some private people are actually

being able to do that but this one just opens the floodgates so we'll again as usual we'll have

to see how it goes but in the meantime we'll run the numbers

CNBC features in commodities west Texas intermediate oil bump in 4.5 points to the upside

chilling out at $94.47 a barrel natural gas not acting as a hedge today it is also up 1.7 percent

just passing three dollars per thousand cubic feet gasoline is up four and a third to three

dollars and fourteen cents merbon crude is up three point seven seven percent and Brent Norse

dude batten a thousand here almost six percent to the upside to chill out at a hundred and eight

twenty five now most people use Brent Norse as the benchmark worldwide oil price

so whenever you hear a news story saying oils it oils over a hundred dollars and you look at

west Texas intermediate and it's at ninety three dollars they're talking about Brent Norse

that's the number people look at and it's at a hundred and eight thirty five a barrel this is

not good this market it's the energy markets that actually tell me more about what's going on with

the run than any news media is because all the news media globally is just sending not only mixed

messages externally and internally like they're like they're like a news agency will literally

contradict itself in two different headlines sent two hours apart no there also it's like all

this information from ex and Instagram and mainstream media and all that is just colliding

together into like this gigantic train wreck and nobody knows what the hell is going on because

everything's on fire right the only real signal that I have is the fact that all energy markets

are screaming in the green right now there's I don't think that there's a deal on the table that's

being taken seriously I don't think they're talking to each other the way that we're being told

they're talking to each other I don't think anything that we're hearing is anything other than

rumor and in you window markets this tells me the truth and everything screaming in the green

and energy right now tells me there's no deal metals are also kind of reinforcing that idea because

they're all in the red and not just in the red way in the red copper down 1.13% palladium down

four and a third gold is down 2.6 to 4,433 and four dimes platinum is down 4% and silver is down

5.7 to 68 dollars and 48 cents per Troy ounce ag is mostly in the green today biggest winner is sugar

2.25% to the upside and that's because of shipping and the biggest loser is coffee 2.37 to the

downside and then we got live cattle basically moving sideways lean hogs down a quarter and feeder

cattle are up a third then we're looking at Bitcoin at $68,940 that's a 1.38 trillion dollar

market cap we can only purchase 15.7 ounces of our favorite shiny metal rock with our one Bitcoin

of which there are 20 million 7,082.41 of an average fees per block or low 0.01 BTC taking

it fees on a per block basis looks to be about 11 blocks carrying 27,000 unconfirmed transactions

waiting to clear at high priorities of two sats per V bite low priorities squeegee in at 0.3

hash rate remains unchanged like basically 988 extra hashes per second was the same

level of security for Bitcoin as we saw yesterday and a little bit more so when you think about it

from leaping leprechauns yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and BTC master with 500 sats says

I'm not an official circle p member yet but we will accept sats for our website design and

hosting at abcwebdesigns.com that's abcwebdesigns.com they are taking Bitcoin for their services you

might want to go check them out support another Bitcoin or when you can nick dose with 178 sats says

cheers not cheers right back at your pal noster gang says boost and gives me 100 sats and that's

the weather report except to say I could always use some sats man if you feel like you can

put yourself out and you know get yourself into giving mood I would love a lot more boost for

this show I like streaming sats on podcasting 2.0 and if you just can't bring yourself to part

with your sats I don't blame you I understand a five star review on apple podcast Spotify

anywhere that anywhere that you can leave a review for the bitcoin and podcast leave me a five star

review on it because it actually helps it really physically helps grow the show so if you don't

have sats at your disposal if you do have some time please consider a five star review and help me

grow the show now that's the weather report welcome to part two of the news that you can use coin

base opposes clarity act again and stable coin yield issue is still unresolved at was 21 has

this one coin base has once again refused to back the latest draft of the clarity act

the american stable coin regulation bill according to a report by punch bull news published on

Wednesday march 25th the leading us exchange told the senate it cannot support the current text

expressing significant concerns over provisions related to stable coin yield so we are right back

to where we started from the bipartisan proposal circulated Monday champion by senators the

farm tillis and angela also Brooks would prohibit exchanges from paying yields on stable coin balances

it would also limit incentive structures by restricting access to transaction size data making it

harder to calculate rewards for users the stakes are high for coin base the exchange recorded

$1.35 billion in stable coin revenue in 2025 much of it derived from distribution payments tied

to its partnership with circle on usdc any restrictions on this front would eliminate one of the

company's primary revenue streams this is not the first time coin base has opposed the bill because

if you remember back in January the exchange had already withdrawn its support for the text pass

by the senate banking committee which included a ban on stable coin yield offerings on that occasion

Brian Armstrong stated that banks were lobbying to stifle competition from crypto platforms

so here we are right back to where we were with Brian Armstrong stifling the clarity act and i

i get why he he doesn't want to lose the revenue stream bro and he also wants he probably wants

to share with his customers so his customers go out and and tell everybody the good news about

coinbase and if you're on coinbase get off get off now run what you run do not walk away from coinbase

but like him or not he goes to the white house all the time Brian Armstrong CEO of coinbase

goes to the white house all the time he has the ear of all these people and right now what he's

muttering is he does not like this clarity act language around stable coin yield he wants

the yields to actually occur now to clarify they the the language basically states two things not

just one you cannot really they say that you cannot give rewards or stable coin yield to balances

that just sit there but you would be able to do something with balances that move

as part of payments or you know receiving or or you know paying somebody or whatever right

as long as as long as it's moving the clarity act as the this draft proposal right now the clarity

act says well you can give that rewards but that's that's nothing that you i mean you would have to

literally be buying and or receiving and sending stable coin like daily like massive amounts to

receive enough yield to make up for the potential revenue loss that Brian Armstrong would suffer

if they say well you can't you can't do a yield on a stable coin balance that doesn't move

so i understand his issue but he might be shooting himself in the foot because

if they can just get the clarity act out there before the midterms if they can get it

to trump's desk and have him sign it then there would actually be some positive motion

all around the crypto world but his greed is getting in front of him and i'm not i'm not a fan

of the clarity act none of this shit it's just that i know what the i i just know how people will

react they're gonna go okay well now we've got clarity now we can actually get into this there's

all still a whole shitload of people that's just waiting in the wings to figure out how the united

states is going to treat this stuff and until they know how they're going to treat this stuff

they're going to remain wall flowers at the big dance it doesn't matter how hot they are they're

going to be wallflower so that's going on as well as morgan stanley moving closer to their own

bitcoin ETF launch with new york stock exchange listing announcement so they are actually still

doing this my gazimmerman bitcoin magazine morgan stanley's long awaited spot bitcoin exchange

traded fund the morgan stanley bitcoin trust has taken a major procedural step toward trading

after the new york stock exchange confirmed an official listing notice for the product

bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric balschunis says the listing typically signals that a launch

is imminent if approved by regulators msbt would mark the first spot bitcoin ETF issued directly

by a major us bank rather than an asset manager existing us spot bitcoin ETFs have been launched by

firms such as blackrock and fidelity but they're not banks that this is an important step this is

a this is a full blown bank not an asset manager and this would be the first ETF coming from a bank

rather than or bitcoin ETF coming from a bank rather than an asset manager and there's a big

difference morgan stanley's wealth management division oversees one of the largest networks of

financial advisors in the industry 16,000 advisors and trillions of dollars in client assets

under management that distribution reach could make msbt a significant channel for bitcoin exposure

in traditional portfolios the ETFs fee structure hasn't been disclosed the flagship us spot bitcoin

ETF from blackrock charges around a quarter of a percent management fee with other issuers ranging

anywhere from 0.2% to 0.3% annually last week morgan stanley confirmed that it's proposed spot

bitcoin exchange traded fund will trade out of the ticker msbt on the new york stock exchange

arca according to an updated filing with the us sec so imminent it would be nice if we could have

it before friday to see what the hell people are gonna do with it but who knows

texas court rejects developers bid to shield software from money transmitter laws this is a

pretty shaky blow to developers this is not good news a texas court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by

crypto developer michael luelan seeking a declaratory judgment that his software pharaohs

which facilitates donations to charitable crowdfunding campaigns won't be prosecuted for

violating money transmission laws chief us district judge read o'connor dismissed the case

on wednesday finding that luelan had failed to demonstrate a credible threat of imminent prosecution

quote disappointed to see the court dismiss my suit today luelan said on x in his dismissal the court

also cited a department of justice memo stating that it will no longer target virtual currency

exchanges mixing and tumbling services or offline wallets for the acts of their end users

or for unwitting violations of regulations quote a non-binding doj memo is no substitute for real

legal certainty added luelan crypto software developers are increasingly seeking legal

protections to shield themselves from criminal liability luelan a pharaoh at crypto advocacy group

coin center which backed the suit argued in his legal complaint last january the developers of

software similar to his product such as those behind tornado cash and samurai wallet

have faced prosecution under those laws however judge o'connor argued that the core conduct

of the tornado cash cases and what a what a what a I lost my place here do do yeah samurai and tornado

that the judges arguing that the core conduct of those cases is money laundering quote by contrast the

core conduct here would be running a business and luelan disclaims any knowing transmission of

criminal funds which is central to the prosecutions he invokes judge o'connor wrote luelan said

his lawyers are exploring all options for a path forward judge o'connor dismissed the case

without prejudice meaning luelan could pursue the same action again with certain corrections or

modifications peter van volkenberg the executive director at coins center said the memo cited by

judge o'connor quote has not provided meaningful protection to developers given the outcomes in

the tornado cash and samurai wallet cases in quote valkenberg and luelan have now called for

congress to pass the blockchain regulatory certainty act of twenty twenty six introduced by senator

sent the alumnus in january the legislation aims to clarify that developers and providers of

non custodial software who do not control user funds are not subject to money transmitter laws

quote so while I hope the court is right that non custodial software developers are not at real

risk the blanch memo is not enough to secure their rights it is a vague enforcement signal

not a durable limit on government power volkenberg added quote worse the court has now used that vague

signal as a reason not to provide actual judicial clarity on the scope of developer liability

instead of a clear rule developers get a revocable memo and a court telling them not to worry

yeah that would freak me out too oh don't worry about it can I have that in writing in language

that is legal no but I'm just telling you don't worry about it yeah that that that doesn't seem

very helpful and neither does this mara sells fifteen thousand one hundred and thirty three

bitcoin for one point one billion dollars assholes to fund their convertible note repurchase again

assholes you shouldn't you shouldn't have put out the convertible notes okay so

mara announced on thursday that it sold bitcoin for approximately one point one billion dollars and

use the proceeds to retire nearly a similar amount of its zero percent convertible senior notes

due twenty thirty and twenty thirty one the sales occurred between march 4th and march the

25th according to a statement this follows a march third policy revision in which mara expanded

its digital asset management strategy to permit the sales of bitcoin held on its balance sheet

expanding beyond the prior policy that limited sales to newly mined production at the time of

the policy shift the bitcoin miner held fifty three thousand eight hundred and twenty two bitcoin with

twenty eight percent of that total activated under lending and collateral arrangements mara said it

entered into privately negotiated repurchase agreements to buy back three hundred and sixty seven

point five million dollar principle of its zero percent convertible notes for three hundred and

twenty two point nine million and six hundred and thirty three point four million principle of its

zero percent convertible notes which are due on twenty thirty one for five hundred and eighty nine

point nine million the repurchases are expected to close on march 30th and march the 31st per the

statement the transactions captured eighty eight point one million dollars in cash savings

before transaction costs representing a nine percent discount to par value following the

repurchases six hundred and thirty two million principle of the twenty thirty notes and five

hundred and nine no no two hundred and ninety one million principle of the two

twenty thirty one notes remain outstanding quote this transaction enhances financial flexibility

and increases strategic optionality as we expand beyond pure play bitcoin mining into digital

energy an artificial intelligence slash high performance compute infrastructure mara CEO Fred

in a statement so they sold a shit ton of bitcoin starting the day after they revised their rules

and it so happens that I brought those rule revisions about marathon or well now it's mara mining

that day back on march the third so if you were if you were listening to show you kind of you

least had a head up that this was going to happen and now we've discovered that the very next day

they started selling bitcoin and they kept on selling until a couple of days ago and of course

that hasn't helped the price of bitcoin one went during this whole Iran conflict bullshit so

let's finish it up today within video they're facing a certified class action lawsuit over crypto

revenue disclosures so they lied about mining this is Brian Dango from the block a federal judge

has certified a class of investors accusing Nvidia and its CEO Jensen Huang or hang or have

your pronounce it of concealing the extent to which the company's gaming GPU revenue was driven

by cryptocurrency mining between the years twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen rejecting the chip

makers bid to block the case in an order filed Wednesday US district judge Haywood gillium junior

granted plaintiffs motion for class certification finding they had indeed met the legal standard

to proceed as a group the judge also denied Nvidia's motion to exclude the damages methodology

of the plaintiffs expert the class is defined as all persons or entities who purchased Nvidia

common stock between August 10th 2017 and November 15th 2018 lead plaintiffs are Lenovo I can't

pronounce this name I can't pronounce either one of these guys names this is like hard core Polish

I'm not even gonna try to do it dude according to the filing plaintiffs alleged that Nvidia's public

statements from 2017 to 2018 falsely characterized crypto related revenue as insignificant and largely

confined to its OEM segment when in fact nearly two thirds of that revenue came from GeForce

gaming GPUs recorded in the gaming segment segment Nvidia had argued that the alleged

misstatements did not impact its stock price the court found Nvidia failed to fully rebut evidence

of price impact tied to the alleged misstatements particularly around the November

2018 disclosure following that disclosure where Nvidia cut guidance incited a sharp fall-off in

crypto demand the stock fell 28.5% over two trading sessions per the filing the court pointed

to analyst report from Morgan Stanley Mcquery research and RBC capital markets that linked the

November disclosure to prior statements about crypto exposure RBC capital markets later estimated

Nvidia generated 1.95 billion dollars in crypto related revenue that's far above the 602 million

the company had indicated over the same period according to the order investors first sued Nvidia

in 2018 that case was dismissed in 2021 but revived by the ninth circuit in 2023 in 2022 the SEC

find Nvidia 5.5 million dollars for failing to disclose the impact of crypto mining on its business

the court certification does not determine liability but it allows investors to pursue claims

collectively a case management conference is set for April 21st 2026 so it's the judge didn't

rule in favor of the plaintiffs they just he just said you have standing in this court to proceed

as a class act action that's all it did but that's enough this probably is going to affect Nvidia

I don't know in a miniscule way maybe a little bit harder but I kind of doubt it because their

revenue is freaking screaming it the only thing that I could see happening to Nvidia that would

really impact their stock prices if they lose this case and the punitive damages are extremely heavy

like in the billions of dollars or something like that other than that I honestly don't think

Nvidia's got much to worry about because again they are so busy manufacturing or AI right now

they are making revenue hand over fist that these numbers these numbers are paltry the numbers

that Nvidia was listing in 2017 and 2018 look nothing like the revenue numbers they're listing

right now so I just don't think anything is really going to come to this as far as Nvidia being

impacted all right so that's all the news that you could use today I am your host David Bennett

here on the Bitcoin end podcast please please please consider throwing me some big old boost because

I can always use the Satoshi's and I'll see you on the other side this has been Bitcoin and

I'm your host David Bennett I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon

have a great day