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It’s Arsen, bringing you the 17th edition of TLDR Bitcoin - the newsletter that mixes fart jokes and education (not easy).

First, happy Sunday to 1,590 of you reading today.

I started writing this thing five months ago to improve my writing skills. Proud to say that I haven’t missed a single week! All thanks to you guys for keeping me accountable.

Here’s what I got for you this week:

• Ledger fu*cks users for 69th time

• Tether is stacking HARD

• US debt default incoming?

Estimated read time: 3 minutes and 57 seconds

LONELY? LEDGER IS HERE TO F*CK YOU

What do Ledger and Britney Spears have in common?

They both live by ‘oops, I did it again.’

Ledger has once again fuc*ed their customers - for the 69th time in the last 5 years.

The popular hardware wallet manufacturer sparked controversy after releasing a new feature called Ledger Recover. Here’s why:

• It encrypts your seed phrase into 3 parts and stored them at different third parties

• Users will need to KYC themselves to access this feature

• It will cost $9/mo

Yikes. What could go wrong? It’s not like they have a history of leaking user data.

Collecting more data is what will keep Ledger users safe, after all:

Essentially, Ledger is doing the one thing hardware wallet manufacturers are not supposed to do: get access to the user’s seed phrase.

This is why everyone and their dog are pissed at Ledger. This is where the Ledger Support team came to the rescue…by making it MUCH worse.

In a nutshell, this is what happened:

Ledger in 2022: “A firmware update cannot extract your private keys”

Ledger in 2023: “Weeelll, technically, it’s away been possible to extract your private keys with a firmware update”

Translation: we have all kinds of ways of fucking you up, you just didn’t know.

If this was their marketing strategy…BRAVO! It worked: everyone’s talking about you. Also, people are posting videos of them destroying their Ledger devices. Still… good job!

This kind of stuff is expected of them at this point, so at least they’re on brand.

But you have to praise them: they’ve become a meme in the industry. As a meme connoisseur, I can appreciate this.

Anyways, here’s an exclusive sneak peek at their future firmware update. Looks good to me!

TETHER IS THE NEW MICROSTRATEGY

Saylor, step aside. We’ve found a new target for our simping: Tether.

The company behind the oldest stablecoin has revealed a $1.5 Billion Q1 profit. Now they want to dethrone Michal Saylor and put some of those profits to use.

The “wen moon” crowd is ecstatic. Here’s why:

• In Q1 Tether made $1.5 Billion in net income ($493 million per month)

• They plan on investing 15% of net operating profits in Bitcoin

• That equals buying ~$74,000,000 of Bitcoin or 2780 BTC every month

• That’s 3X the amount of bitcoin mined per month 👀

Although 15% is nothing compared to what I put into Bitcoin, this is still pretty impressive!

More BTC buying pressure = more pamps

The funny part? You can thank the US and the Fed for pumping your bags:

1. Tether is a company, that makes money by earning interest in US treasuries

2. Higher interest rates = more money Tether makes

3. More money Tether makes = more bitcoin they buy = higher prices

4. Higher prices = we’re getting lambos or girlfriends (not both, that’s unrealistic)

Get ready: there will be lots of FUD. People have been hating Tether (unsuccessfully) for years now. This will only accelerate it.

Nevertheless, this is a pretty chad move by Tether.

If you’re feeling generous (and a little entertained), why not share TLDR with a bitcoiner 👇

US DEFAULTING ON ITS $31 TRILLION DEBT?

“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”

Our boy Satoshi embedded this legendary quote on Genesis Block 14 years ago.

Fast forward to today, we’re on the brink of something else: the US defaulting on its $31 trillion debt. Here’s what’s going on:

1. US lawmakers are debating a law known as the “debt ceiling,” which dictates how much debt the US government can have

2. If they don’t agree by June 1, the US could default on its debt

This is what’s called a “clean default.”

Let’s get this straight: this is extremely unlikely to happen. What is guaranteed to happen is a “soft default.” And no, not soft in the way that your girlfriend calls you.

Soft default = when the real value of debt is repriced due to inflation

And oh boy, have we seen inflation lately.

Look, I get it. Defaulting is so hot right now. Countries such as Zambia and Sri Lanka have already defaulted on their debts. Countries like Kenya and Pakistan are soon to follow.

But ultimately, the debate is pointless: all governments always default on their debts by printing money.

Let me say it again: the debt ceiling doesn't matter. Speaking about defaults doesn’t matter.

BTW, do you know who pays their loans on time?

El Salvador. The little Bitcoin country in Latin America just paid off an $800 million debt. This is despite mainstream media fearmongering that the country would go bankrupt because of Bitcoin. There’s a lesson here.

So, is this good for Bitcoin?

This is pure rocket fuel for Bitcoin. The fact that people are talking about the greatest economic powerhouse of the West defaulting on its debts is significant. The value of US treasuries, traditionally seen as safe haven asset, will plummet as the trust in the US government decreases.

Don’t believe me? A Bloomberg survey found that bitcoin is the top 3 asset in the case of US debt default.

So yeah, people are already aware that Bitcoin is an alternative safe-have asset.

That’s why the elite is attacking it. They’re afraid.

This week in a meme

Job of the week

JAN3 is looking for a Product Manager.

They’re hiring for a bunch of other roles too. Looks like they’re cooking up something special.

From the archive

Do you ever miss a person you’ve never met?

That’s it for this one.

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See you next Sunday,

Arsen

PS: Enjoy the newsletter? Please forward it to bitcoiner. It only takes 5 seconds. Writing it takes me 5 hours.