Mic Drop

I expect most people here don't know, but back in March, the 9th circuit reversed Wit v UBH for, basically, no reason. All the law blogs were croggled: the decision of the court was both very short and just made no sense. What's Wit vs UBH? A really important decision about a law suit against a health insurance company under a federal law called ERISA. ERISA is a consumer protection law that says if a company takes your money to provide you a financial service, they can't take advantage of the fact they have your money hostage to fleece you. It asserts the company has what's called a "fiduciary duty" – they have to behave in a trustworthy manner and do what they said they were going to do when you contract with them for a service. The Wit vs UBH suit argued that they had caught UBH, a health insurance company, making up standards of medical necessity for when they should have to pay for medical care that were in violation of widely agreed upon standards of care in medicine, and in some cases were hard or impossible for any patient to meet. All to get out of having to pay for health care services their members needed, leading to a bunch of people dying – it was a class action suit and some of the members of it were surviving family of the patients. The Wit case was particularly egregious because they found smoking-gun internal emails of doctors in the insurance company, UBH, saying to management, this is against medical standards, and we could probably be sued into oblivion if caught. There was no question what the plaintiffs alleged was actually going on, and everyone doing it knew it was criminal. The ninth circuit ruled, nah, it's cool. Insurance companies don't need to actually, you know, pay for the healthcare they charged you premiums to cover, if they can invent an excuse. Any excuse really. As a consequence, they just basically invalidated the whole of ERISA. Which doesn't just cover insurance – it covers all banking and investment companies too. Or did. And by extension, they may have just knocked over consumer protection laws as a class. Because what is anyone going to do about it? Appeal to the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court we have would love to destroy the principle of consumer protection laws.

According to a statement issued by State Department spokesperson Ned Price on Friday, the United States is offering up to $15 million in rewards for information on the Russian-based Conti ransomware operation. Any information that leads to the identification or location of the Conti group's leaders might reward you up to $10 million. In addition, any information leading to the arrest of anybody conspiring with the Conti group will be awarded $5 million. The FBI estimates that more than 1,000 victims have paid the Conti group more than $150 million in ransomware payments, making its ransomware variant the most expensive ever documented. Just last month, the group had attacked the Government of Costa Rica and targeted at least five government agencies, including the Ministries of Finance, Science, and Technology According to Price, "In offering this reward, the United States demonstrates its commitment to protecting potential ransomware victims around the world from exploitation by cybercriminals." https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/145650/us-offers-15-million-in-rewards-for-information-on-russia-based-conti-ransomware-group/

On Friday, a Federal Judge dismissed former President Donald Trump's case against Twitter, which sought to revoke his permanent suspension from the social media giant which had recently accepted Elon Musk’s (aka the Dogefather) offer of $44 billion offer to buy Twitter. Mr Trump’s contentions which rested on his right to free speech under the first amendment were shot down by the judge who stated that it only applied to “governmental abridgements of speech, and not to alleged abridgements by private companies.” Ironically, Mr Trump had declared just two weeks ago that he would not be coming back to the platform even if Mr Musk lifted the ban. https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/145652/trumps-attempt-to-lift-permanent-twitter-ban-dismissed-by-federal-judge/

Binance has reportedly stopped offering its crypto derivatives services in Spain as it awaits approval from the Spanish regulator, Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV). Binance’s official Spain website has removed the derivatives option from its interface by removing the drop-down menu. However, the URLs for derivative services in Spain, including futures, battle, and derivative portal, are still active, according to Cointelegraph. According to a local report, Binance would reintroduce the derivatives option only after gaining regulatory approval from the Bank of Spain in the form of a guarantee certificate (BdE). https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-reportedly-halts-crypto-derivatives-service-in-spain

Instagram, the popular social media app owned by Meta Platforms, is set to launch its NFT integration pilot for the platform on Monday. According to the report from CoinDesk, Instagram is planning non-fungible token (NFT) integrations for Ethereum, Polygon, Solana and Flow. A small group of NFT enthusiasts from the United States will participate in the pilot. It's unclear whether Instagram will support NFTs from all four chains when it launches. Unlike Twitter, Instagram will not charge its users a fee for displaying NFTs according to CoinDesk. Instagram will support widely used crypto wallets like MetaMask. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/05/08/metas-instagram-to-support-nfts-from-ethereum-polygon-solana-flow/

Sony Electronics has partnered with Theta Labs to launch nonfungible tokens (NFTs) that can be viewed in mixed reality through Sony's Spatial Reality Display, a display that allows individuals to experience things in 3D without the use of typical 3D peripherals. The Spatial Reality Display follows the viewer's eye movement and modifies the display accordingly, providing a 3D viewing experience. Sony and Theta will be releasing an NFT called The Tiki Guy which is a 3D Tiki Mask. There will only be ten of these NFTs produced. While the NFT drop is designed for 3D viewing, 2D versions will be available as well. According to Nick Colsey, a Sony Electronics executive, “Consumers can now enjoy a next-generation 3D experience without the need for 3D eyewear. Theta’s NFTs are just the latest way we can show our rapid adoption of metaverse-friendly technology.” https://cointelegraph.com/news/theta-labs-to-help-sony-launch-3d-nfts-compatible-with-spatial-reality-display

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reached a $5.5 million settlement with NVIDIA over the company’s alleged failure to disclose that crypto mining was a significant contributor to its 2018 revenue. The company also agreed to a cease-and-desist order based on violations of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934's disclosure requirements. According to the SEC, throughout the fiscal year 2018, the company failed to disclose that crypto mining was the primary driver of sales of its graphics processing units (GPUs) advertised and developed for gaming. The SEC stated, “NVIDIA’s omissions of material information about the growth of its gaming business were misleading given that NVIDIA did make statements about how other parts of the company’s business were driven by demand for crypto, creating the impression that the company’s gaming business was not significantly affected by crypto mining.” The SEC contends that NVIDIA’s disclosure failures deprived investors of critical information to evaluate the company’s business in a key market. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/05/06/nvidia-failed-to-disclose-cryptomining-revenue-impact-in-2018-sec-says/

According to CNBC, Google is forming a web3 team that will build back-end services for developers operating blockchain applications. Amit Zavery, Vice President of Google Cloud, reportedly informed his team in an email on Friday that the goal is to make the Google Cloud platform the first choice for Web3 developers while not being involved in the cryptocurrency wave directly. His email as reported by CNBC read, “While the world is still early in its embrace of Web3, it is a market that is already demonstrating tremendous potential with many customers asking us to increase our support for Web3 and Crypto-related technologies.” https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/145519/google-is-building-a-web3-focused-team/

Julian Holguin, former executive at Billboard, was announced as the new CEO of Doodles. ‘Doodles’ is the popular community and PFP collection of 10,000 NFTs on Ethereum. According to the tweet, “Julian will work alongside the founders to expand Doodles IP throughout music, gaming, and entertainment, while deeply integrating culture into the product. In the coming weeks, we will introduce you to the next phase of Doodles — groundbreaking projects, transformative partnerships and a full reveal of our vision & roadmap.” Holguin has previously worked at Billboard for ten years, serving as vice president of brand partnerships, senior vice president of revenue and partnerships, and, finally as president in 2021 before coming on board at Doodles. https://decrypt.co/99660/ethereum-nft-collective-doodles-names-billboard-executive-new-ceo

Blender.io, a crypto mixer, has been added to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control's list of businesses sanctioned for interacting with the North Korean-backed hacker group involved in Axie Infinity's Ronin Bridge attack. According to the official press release, North Koreans allegedly used Blender.io to process $20.5 million of the nearly $620 million taken. According to the report, Blender.io has handled the movement of almost $500 million in Bitcoin since its launch five years ago. Blender.io has also allowed money-laundering operations for the Russia-affiliated ransomware gang Conti. This follows widespread concern over the cryptocurrency industry's role in Russian sanctions evasion. According to Andrew Fierman, Head of Sanctions Strategy at Chainalysis, “While [Treasury] has targeted laundering services used by hackers, ransomware operators, and other illicit actors in recent months, this is the first designation of a mixer, indicating an advancement in their strategy to dismantle crypto money-laundering infrastructure.” https://www.ft.com/content/795892b3-806b-4079-8bc9-6cf75dc074f4

Not everything that is true can be proven. This discovery transformed infinity, changed the course of a world war and led to the modern computer.

According to research from Coinbase, the worst of the crypto market's macro capitulation is over, with a bullish second half of 2022 arriving. The exchange published a report which outlined several factors for its findings. Specifically, Ethereum's shift to proof-of-stake (PoS), which would reduce ETH supply and, ideally, make it a deflationary asset, is something bulls can anticipate, according to the report. Another factor might be the "commoditisation of Ethereum layer-2 networks," which would result in new L2 tokens and possibly a new crypto investment category. The report also highlighted that incoming regulatory clarity in the US will ground confidence for investors. https://www.coinbureau.com/news/coinbase-report-says-capitulation-mostly-over-bitcoin-supply-shock-in-play/

Argentina's central bank (BCRA) announced today that financial institutions cannot allow their consumers to conduct transactions using digital assets, only days after two Argentine private banks indicated that crypto trading will be available to their customers. According to the BCRA statement, banks are barred from providing services for any digital assets that are not regulated by the central bank, and because no digital assets are currently regulated, the measure amounts to a de facto ban. According to the statement, “The measure ordered by the BCRA's board of directors seeks to mitigate the risks associated with transactions with these assets that could be generated for users of financial services and for the financial system as a whole.” https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/05/05/argentinas-central-bank-bans-lenders-from-offering-crypto-services/

As part of its aim to bring social media and news sites into ‘Web3’, Binance Holdings Ltd. has committed $500 million to Elon Musk's proposed buyout of Twitter Inc. The crypto exchange is among a dozen outside investors backing Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover of Twitter, according to a filing published on Thursday. Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao stated, “We’re excited to be able to help Elon realise a new vision for Twitter. We hope to be able to play a role in bringing social media and web3 together and broadening the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.” Binance is forming an internal team to look into how blockchain can help Twitter and other social media platforms and has brought up BNB Chain (a blockchain that Binance helped to develop) to Musk and his team. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-05/binance-eyes-bringing-twitter-to-web3-with-backing-for-musk-bid

The three co-founders of BitMEX crypto derivatives exchange, including former CEO Arthur Hayes, have been ordered to pay a total of $30 million in civil monetary penalties by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The order comes as a result of a suit lodged in October 2020 by the US regulator against the exchange and its executive team for facilitating the trading and processing of swaps without the necessary CFTC licensure in the US. In addition to failing to register with the CFTC, the firm failed to undertake adequate anti-money laundering and know-your-customer checks, according to the order. https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/145385/court-orders-bitmex-co-founders-pay-a-total-of-30-million-in-cftc-civil-case/

As a part of its goal to accumulate $10 billion in Bitcoin to back algorithmic stablecoin U.S. Terra (UST), the Luna Foundation Guard (a non-profit managing the reserves for the UST stablecoin) disclosed yesterday that it has purchased 37,863 BTC worth nearly $1.5 billion. LFG now holds roughly a total of $3.5 billion worth of BTC in its reserves, making it the 7th largest BTC holder. LFG acquired the BTC via over-the-counter swaps with Genesis Trading and Three Arrows Capital. Of the $1.5 billion, $1 billion was an OTC swap with Genesis while the other $500 million was acquired from Three Arrows Capital. https://cointelegraph.com/news/luna-foundation-guard-purchases-additional-37-863-btc-as-part-of-reserve-strategy

After an initial pump in prices following the announcement of a half-point interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve, markets quickly tumbled as investors realised that a 0.5% interest rate hike was still rather high by historical standards. Moreover, there were concerns it may not still not be enough to stave off inflation. The initial pump was a sign of relief from investors who had expected the hike to be much higher. Bitcoin fell 8% in under 24 hours, dipping below $36,000 before stabilising. The crypto market as a whole dropped 7% within the same time period, with Ethereum losing 7% from yesterday's price and the rest of the top 10 losing between 5% and 9%. The Dow Jones and Nasdaq fell 3.1% and 5%, respectively. https://decrypt.co/99595/bitcoin-ethereum-continue-fall-losses-deepen-across-crypto-market

Argo Blockchain has received more than $70 million in loans to expand its Bitcoin mining business in Dickens County, Texas. Helios, the company's flagship crypto mining operation in Texas, is borrowing an aggregate principal amount of $70.6 million from New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG). This is the second 8-figure loan that Argo has taken out from NYDIG in the last month. The funds from the loan are expected to be utilised in “fitting out Phase 1 of the Helios site”. CEO Peter Wall stated, “With our mining operations at Helios expected to commence in May, along with the development of custom mining machines using Intel’s next-generation Blockscale ASIC chips, Argo is well-positioned to continue its growth with a focus on delivering for our shareholders,” https://www.coinbureau.com/news/bitcoin-miner-argo-takes-out-70-million-loan-for-texas-mining-operation/

Kazakhstan's government has issued new reporting rules for cryptocurrency mining companies, with a focus on how the industry's energy use affects the local power infrastructure. The order published by the country’s Minister of Digital Development earlier this week requires new miners and hosting centres to register company names as well as physical and IP addresses and contact information for responsible parties 30 or more days before beginning operations. Expected power usage, hardware needs, and investment are also included in these reports. Miners will also be required to produce proof of Kazakhstan residency. Existing miners must also provide quarterly updates on this information, according to the order. Crypto miners that want to shut down their activities will also have to report it. https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/145103/kazakhstan-formalizes-reporting-regime-for-cryptocurrency-miners/

According to the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) (the French financial market regulator), Binance can now operate its digital asset trading platform in France, which means it can facilitate digital asset custody, let users buy and sell crypto, and help users exchange digital assets for each other. This is the exchange's first major approval from a G-7 member country, indicating that the company's development into other European markets is possible. Last week, CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao praised the country as a "crypto-friendly" government and announced a $100 million investment in the country's blockchain ecosystem. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-04/binance-poised-for-french-regulatory-nod-amid-european-push

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Wednesday to start implementing a crypto framework in the state. The state will create a "transparent and consistent business environment" for blockchain-related enterprises, including crypto-asset asset projects and those of related financial technology, under the order, as well as the California Consumer Financial Protection Law passed in 2020. According to Newsom, "California is a global hub of innovation, and we’re setting up the state for success with this emerging technology – spurring responsible innovation, protecting consumers and leveraging this technology for the public good. Too often government lags behind technological advancements, so we’re getting ahead of the curve on this, laying the foundation to allow for consumers and business to thrive" https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/05/04/california-governor-signs-executive-order-to-spur-crypto-industry-in-the-state/

Polkadot has announced the launch of its cross-chain messaging system called ‘Cross-Consensus Messaging format (XCM)’. With this arrival, Polkadot has finally implemented the function of interoperability between its parachains. The newly launched XCM messaging system is intended to promote Polkadot’s multichain ecosystem and enable communication between parachains themselves as well as smart contracts. The system will eliminate the need for bridges and facilitate the movement of data and crypto-assets across Polkadot's parachains. https://cointelegraph.com/news/polkadot-launches-cross-chain-messaging-system-to-solve-blockchain-s-bridge-problem

The popular fashion label Gucci has announced that it will begin accepting crypto payments from customers in select store locations across the United States. The fashion label has been quite active in the crypto, web3 and metaverse space for a while now by acquiring land in The Sandbox and launching its own NFT collections. Gucci plans to accept crypto payments starting with five store locations with one each in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta and Las Vegas by the end of this month. Eventually, the label hopes to implement crypto payments across all its 111 locations in North America. Customers will be able to make cryptocurrency payments simply by scanning a QR code given by Gucci via email with their crypto wallet. Gucci has already begun training its employees through cryptocurrency and NFT education. https://decrypt.co/99504/gucci-begin-accepting-bitcoin-some-stores industry's energy use affects the local power infrastructure.

Michael Saylor: Bitcoin and the current situation around it. On the MicroStrategy earnings Michael Saylor shares his opinions on the current macro situation and events around bitcoin. Is worth a read. Emphasis mine "In Q1, we saw some fairly seminal events, the trucker crisis in Canada, the Ukrainian war, Russian sanctions, continued inflation, supply chain chaos, concerns about food and energy shortages, all of those things have been combined with a weakening currency environment, the Chinese currency, the Japanese currency, South Africa -- South America and African currencies, and a lot of Asian currencies were all collapsing against the dollar. In fact, just about every currency in the world, except for two, I think, are collapsing against the dollar right now. This is creating a very challenging macroeconomic environment. It's going to continue to create uncertainty and challenges for all businesses. I think that it has had the impact of increasing awareness of and the understanding of the need for a digital asset like Bitcoin and so the silver-lining is that hundreds of millions, if not billions of people are now becoming aware of the need for non-sovereign store value digital asset like Bitcoin. The negative is it creates a very challenging operating environment. Over the last few months in the world of Bitcoin, the interesting developments worth highlighting are the executive order coming out of the Biden White House on March 9th, which was really a first as long as anyone can remember, the first time that we had the executive branch in the United States in essence highlighting and endorsing an asset class as being critical to the future of the nation. And so I thought that, that was extraordinarily auspicious. Janet Yellen gave a speech on April 7th at American University, equally auspicious. We had the secretary of the treasury of the United States, laying out the case for decentralized networks, the theory of digital property, talking about the need for digital currencies. What the innovations in the crypto economy and suggesting that the administration is going to do enthusiastically move forward to provide responsible regulations to allow this economy to grow. I thought that was very critical, too. I think if you put all of these macroeconomic developments together with the regulator signal, what you have is a world that's a bit insecure about currencies and insecure about property rights and then, secure about 20th century banking systems and 20th century payment systems and aware that they need to find a solution. But you also have another big development, which is that the deniers of Bitcoin and digital assets in general are now being silenced by the administration of the United States. One of the early crippling criticism was this is just a panty scheme, where this is intangible or there's nothing here. And I think that, with now the head of the SEC, the head of treasury, the president of the United States acknowledging that there is something here. And it's an important priority for the entire government. I think that, that really isolates the deniers and if not making them look silly at this point, because, it's pretty clear that 250 million people know that there is something here. And it's growing like wildfire. And it's pretty clear that the government recognizes this. So, we have another classification of Bitcoin investors after deniers that will be the skeptics. The skeptics acknowledge that it exists. They acknowledge that it's good. They may even acknowledge that, it's better than gold and it's better than other sorts of money or property and then they follow-up with the observation that since it's so good the politicians will ban it or the government will ban it. And that was -- that's been articulated by a number of fairly well-known credible sources over the past two years. But of course, with the March 9th executive order and the Yellen speech of April 7th, it gets increasingly difficult to maintain the skeptical stance, because you would have to, in essence, put yourself in opposition to the White House, right? It's not the policy of the United States demand Bitcoin. So in fact, it's not the policy of anyone in the Western world to band Bitcoin. So the deniers and the skeptics are being silenced, and now the entire Bitcoin market is evolving to be controlled by the traders, the technocrats, and the maximalist. And clearly, the volatility of the market right now is driven by the fact that the traders are trading Bitcoin as a correlated asset to the NASDAQ. And technology investors that are NASDAQ heavy are selling or shorting technology assets as a risk off trade, as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. So I would say that, if we look at the last three months, although the macroeconomic environment is difficult and macroeconomic winds are blowing in the face of all risk assets and all operating companies. I would say the fundamental developments, the political developments and the market awareness of Bitcoin has made enormous strides – and if you compare where we were today on where we are today versus two years ago, the asset class has matured dramatically, awareness has matured dramatically and the risk of holding the asset class has decreased. And specifically, I think the skeptics in the past 24 months are increasingly disappearing and everyone is migrating to either a trader or a technocrat or a maximalist. I had a chance to attend the Bitcoin conference in Miami Beach this April. I noted a massive surge of interest in bitcoin among politicians, among media and among investors. And there are a lot of politicians that hadn't heard of it and weren't interested in it a year ago, both international and domestic, and now it's on their radar, and they realize they need to pay attention to it. It's probably not uncorrelated to the executive order of March 9. I think there's a lot more media coverage and we've seen a change in the media tone. I think the media tone two years ago was nonexistent. In fact, people used to lament that Bitcoin was not being covered by mainstream media at all. It wasn't until February of 2021 after Tesla bought Bitcoin that Bitcoin got on to the radar of mainstream media. But I think that over the past few months, the tone has evolved from skeptical or amused to respectful. And in fact, I almost noticed now that that mainstream journalists across the major papers and the major cable news networks are all much, much more aware of the entire crypto economy, much, much more aware of bitcoin in its value proposition and much less skeptical, much more interested in engage. And I think the environment has moved from disinterested, through skeptical to now neutrally intrigued or even, I would say, intrigued, intrigued would be the right word in the media. Also seen a bunch of investors, credible investors that are well respected in the space, speaking much more freely about Bitcoin in the marketplace. And actually, becoming much more vocal and much more supportive in their words. And I think that, that's a big move forward over the past 12 months. Examples of that, we see our Carlos, Salinas, Piaggio becoming much more vocal, [Inaudible] becoming much more vocal. Paul Tudor Jones becoming much more vocal. And Orlando Bravo becoming much more vocal. So, I think you'll continue to see this develop over the next 12 months. I think advances in the Lightning Network are pretty relevant, maybe one of the bigger developments in the past 12 months is lightening is maturing. And Lightning is the open permissionless non-custodial Layer 2 network. In essence, if Bitcoin represents protocol for sound money, Lightning represents a protocol for transaction and money transfer that's open permissionless. And since it's -- it could, in theory, scale to hundreds of millions or billions of transactions an hour. This is, in essence, the Internet of money. Two years ago, the Lightning network was really just developmental. In the past year, it's come to life. And so we're now entering into early part of the year two of the Internet for money coming to life. Major milestones there, block integrating, lightning into the Cash App was a major milestone. The release of specifications for the Taro protocol on top of Lightning is a major milestone.What it means is that Lightning will in time not just move Satoshi's back and forth at the speed of light to billions of people, Lightning will also move other digital assets like stable coins, Tether or a circle or any other digital currency or any other digital token could or an NFC or another asset could move over the Lightning network at extraordinary high speeds, extremely scalable, while taking advantage of the security assurances of the Bitcoin network. So that's pretty compelling. Kraken also incorporated Lightning into their exchange, and that's a very compelling breakthrough. So I think in time, all the competitive digital assets, exchanges and all the competitive applications of money transfer and the like are going to have to build Lightening as a protocol into their applications. And we've got a number of years of development there, but the significance of Lightning is it takes Bitcoin from being viewed just as an asset and as a low frequency, high volume -- a low-frequency, high-value settlement network and it takes it to the next level, which is becoming a high frequency, high volume, very, very functionally rich, scalable transaction network. And there will be, I think, an explosion of applications on top of the Bitcoin network that are empowered by Lightning. Another big development in Bitcoin this last quarter is the launch of Fidelity's 401k offering. We're very enthusiastic about that. And of course, we're an early anchor partner with them on that launch. Bitcoin is better than gold. To call it digital gold is an understatement. It really is the hardest money in the history of the world. But if you're thinking about generational wealth and if you wanted to leave something for your grandchildren or if you wanted a retirement fund, it's obviously a very, very compelling element of a 401k. We just saw just on television today, one of the world's great macro investors, Paul Tudor Jones said, in the current economic environment, I certainly wouldn't be owning stocks and bonds. I mean, people are very skeptical of owning equities and owning bonds in an environment where you have hyperinflation and macroeconomic wins. So if I can't on stocks, and I can't own bonds, and what am I supposed to put in a 401k? And this is where Bitcoin comes. What have I wanted to hold some kind of commodity money that's better than a commodity because no one can make any more of it. And Bitcoin is that thing. So I do think that -- the world is evolving rapidly. It's probably evolving faster than regulators and the mainstream media can keep up with it kind of like a shock wave. When you start moving through the civilization at a faster rate than people can educate themselves on the consequences, you'll see sparks, but the 401k launch was kind of the shot heard around the world here because what's going on here is people are going to have to stop and think about this and either this is the least risky thing you can put in a retirement portfolio or it's too risky to put in a retirement portfolio. And of course, as soon as you think about it and study it, you'll realize that it's the least risky thing you could put in a retirement portfolio. At least that's the opinion of people that have studied Bitcoin for a while. So the 401k offering from Fidelity is a massive educational event. It's going to put this front and center on the table for financial advisors, retirement planners, the entire big finance industry and I think, ultimately, it's going to introduce Bitcoin to an entirely new class of investors and broaden fill the asset class. So, I'd like to move on to talk about our Bitcoin strategy. We're going to continue to pursue a strategy which offers our investors spot exposure with leverage to Bitcoin. So if you want to buy a security and you would like that security to own Bitcoin. And then you would like to -- and you think it would be a reasonable idea to borrow money at 1.8% interest and buy that Bitcoin then MicroStrategy looks like a rational company to invest in. We're going to work to increase our Bitcoin holdings over time in an accretive fashion. So we're not trading Bitcoin, we're not selling Bitcoin we're holding Bitcoin. And from time to time, when we can, we'll buy more Bitcoin. If we focus upon the strategy, then we believe that we can offer a security to the market and be an operating company that, in essence, is superior to the security that you would get if you were to buy a spot ETF. We won't be an ETF. We're an operating company, and we have the software business. But for an investor that's thinking about buying an ETF that holds spot Bitcoin, they'll think about that. It will probably have no leverage, they'll probably pay a fee. And our goal will be to offer them the same Bitcoin holding, but without charging that fee and to use intelligent leverage from time to time when the opportunity presents itself. I was very, very pleased with the Bitcoin backed loan that we were able to acquire this quarter. We'll obviously use that mechanism sparingly because generally, we're not going to want to develop a large set of obligations where we might have to post additional collateral on a price fluctuation of Bitcoin. So managing our balance sheet versus the risk in the volatility of Bitcoin is primary concern we're always thinking about. We will slow down our Bitcoin acquisitions when market conditions don't present us with any good opportunities. And when the market presents us with lots of good opportunities, we may speed up. And you'll just have to tune in quarter-by-quarter to see what we do there. We have the option to do nothing. And if the market doesn't give us a good option or we have the option to do things. You can see at this point, we've now bought Bitcoin with senior secured debt. We bought Bitcoin with a tender offer. We bought Bitcoin with cash flows from the core business. We bought Bitcoin with convertible debt. We bought Bitcoin with at-the-market equity issuance and we bought Bitcoin with an asset-backed financing. And we pursued each of those initiatives at the time we did it because we thought that they would be accretive to our common stock shareholders and beneficial to our long-term strategy. My last point I'll make before we take questions are; we will continue to pursue a mission of education and advocacy on behalf of Bitcoin to the general market. As the largest public holder of bitcoin, it makes sense for us to educate regulators. It makes sense for us to educate other corporations, it makes sense for us to educate anyone in the media or any politicians that are interested and what this means to the world, and why it's good for the world, why it's good for the United States, why it's good for their corporation, their institution and then how they can benefit and plug Bitcoin into their P&L or plug it into their balance sheet. If you don't follow me on Twitter, please do. I now just cross 2.4 million followers. And I try to share thoughts about the current environment on a pretty routine basis. I'm pleased to say that by the end of the day today or tomorrow, a podcast I did with Lex Friedman on YouTube will have crossed 2 million views. So I sat down with Lex in my study at my home in Miami Beach, and we talked for four hours about digital transformation and the bitcoin imperative. And our strategy and, of course, macroeconomics and geopolitics. And it's not easy to put 2 million people into your living room. But 2 million people listening for four hours is a lot of education, and we'll continue to do more of it. I feel that where there's an enormous thirst for knowledge about digital assets. There's enormous thirst for knowledge about the implications of Bitcoin to the world and the entire crypto economy. There's a lot of education to do. We're nowhere near done. We're really just starting, but we have established a platform to do that and we will get more and more opportunities to communicate this message and educate the world. I'll continue with our efforts working with Bitcoin miners through the Bitcoin Mining Council and the entire Bitcoin community to address misperceptions about mining to explain the benefits of Bitcoin, the benefits of coin mining. We just had another quarterly release of Bitcoin mining information where we were able to show the world for the fourth quarter in a row, Bitcoin mining is running on more than 50% sustainable energy, in fact, 58%. 58% sustainable energy usage makes the Bitcoin mining industry, the cleanest, most sustainable industry in the world of all industries. And that was a surprise to many people. It continues to be a surprise to many people, but it's a delightful surprise. Bitcoin mining in general, is 63% more efficient year over year. And a lot of people don't realize that the Bitcoin network is secured, not just by energy, but by technology and that technology is getting exponentially more efficient overtime. So I'm really pleased that we're able to educate the world on the efficiencies of the Bitcoin network and the benefits of Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining. I think that there is a lot more education to do. Our leadership role in acquimiamiring and holding bitcoin as a publicly traded company. It's afforded us a platform to do a lot of that education and we'll continue to do that in the coming year."

A recent report by the European Union Commission, published last month, analyses the implications and avenues with which DeFi could be regulated. According to Patrick Hansen, Head of Strategy at Unstoppable Finance and widely followed for his analysis of European crypto regulation, the report shows that the officials have a good grasp on DeFi and how it works, including individual protocols. The report recognising the blunder of applying traditional financial laws to DeFi stated, “Adapting the EU financial services regulatory framework to a decentralised environment will require a rethink; and regulatory cooperation with the main jurisdictions relevant to the DeFi ecosystem might prove indispensable. To benefit from the inherent data transparency on public blockchains, the Commission announced that it would launch a pilot project on embedded supervision in 2022.” https://www.coinbureau.com/news/european-commission-looks-at-defi-regulation-in-latest-report/