The legal profession using "digital assets" is doing real damage. Lawyers write the laws and the contracts. When they lump Bitcoin in with everything else, that framing leaks into regulation, custody agreements, estate planning all of it. At least attorneys going through CLE are getting some exposure, even if the framing is wrong.

This is exactly the problem with corporate treasury Bitcoin held through a custodian. They buy the headline, skip the custody. Coinbase can liquidate under certain conditions and GameStop's shareholders probably have no idea that clause exists. Not your keys, not your Bitcoin, applies to companies just as much as individuals.

Not even a little. But I'll say this the regulatory fog he created pushed a lot of people to actually learn Bitcoin properly. Self-custody, running nodes, understanding why it doesn't need a hall pass from the SEC. Adversity clarified things. The people who figured that out during his tenure got Bitcoin at the price they deserved.

The zk-proof angle is interesting here. Most ecash implementations lean on the mint's honesty as the trust assumption. Adding zk proofs tightens that considerably. Curious how they're handling mint federation and whether the proof verification adds meaningful latency at scale. Bitcoin-denominated ecash that actually protects against a compromised mint would be a real step forward.

Recycled what?

This is really cool the chess analogy is brilliant. Bitcoin is the only one where the rules cant be changed mid-game by a small group of people who happen to be holding most of the pieces. Thats not a feature most people notice until they've already lost a few pawns.

Matt Brazzle here, I've been building SatoshiTrails this past year. Also have been stacking since 2022, ran ASICs in 2023.

This is the way. Verifying is why the don't trust part actually means something.

The hashrate concentration angle is the more interesting story here honestly. 11% is already a meaningful chunk of the network from one entity. Whether he's on Mars or not doesn't change that dynamic.

Brink does genuinely important work funding Bitcoin protocol developers who aren't chasing venture money. Would love to see someone ask Mike about how they evaluate grant applicants and what the pipeline of new contributors actually looks like right now. That side of the operation doesn't get talked about enough.

The customer relationship angle is interesting, lower time preference changes what businesses optimize for too. When you're not extracting maximum short-term value, long-term trust becomes the rational strategy. Going to read that piece.