GM.

It’s Arsen, bringing you the 13th edition of TLDR Bitcoin - the newsletter that keeps you informed AND entertained.

First, happy Sunday to 1,450 of you reading today. Next edition, I will do a giveaway to celebrate 1,500 subs 🎁

Had a big leg day yesterday. My legs are dead. But don’t worry, my brain and fingers are on fire.

Alright, let’s get into it.

Here’s what I got for you this week:

• SEC’s Gary Gensler destroyed during a hearing

• FTX 2.0 might re-launch 👀

• Russia is exploring Bitcoin mining

Estimated read time: 3 minutes and 41 seconds

RIP: GARY GENSLER

Officer? I would like to report a murder.

I’m talking about Gary Gensler being absolutely rekt during the House Financial Services Committee.

Gary was asked several questions regarding crypto regulation and his role as the SEC’s head. Gary got massacred. He could not answer a single question. During the session, you can see poor Gary visibly shaking.

Here are 3 things you need to know from the hearing:

1/ Genser says he has never owned crypto

No surprises here: the SEC ethics rule doesn’t allow it.

But still, This is like being a basketball coach without ever playing it.

After all, it’s not like Gary taught a course about Blockchain at MIT before his time at the SEC. Oh, wait…

2/ Gensler wouldn’t answer if ETH is a security

Look, we all do this. Sometimes we avoid touchy subjects. “No, Mom, I still don't have a girlfriend.”

But you should’ve seen Gary: he was playing the ‘floor is lava’ game, except lava was the questions directed at him. And boy, was he good at the game.

This is confusing since Gary has been on air saying that all tokens except Bitcoin are securities.

Patrick McHenry: "Is ETH a security or a commodity?"

Gary Gensler:

3/ Gensler might be kicked out from the SEC

Congressman Warren Davidson massacred Gary by going through all his failures.

To finish him off Mortal Kombat style, Davidson called for Gensler to be removed from the SEC Chair.

“Chairman Gensler, your record of failures to protect investors and abuses of power make it clear that we need to restructure” - Warren Davidson said.

Savage.

Gensler got his ass handed to him. And that’s an understatement.

FTX 2.0 RE-LAUNCH?

Lol. You read that right.

FTX miraculously “found” $7 billion and is considering relaunching FTX 2.0

That’s right: the fraudulent shitcoin casino run by our cucumber-loving-totally not-a-scammer ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (damn, that was a mouthful) might make a comeback.

Here’s what we know about it:

1. FTX might restart in mid-2024

They will need lots more capital to pull this off, though. The exchange is also considering allowing creditors to convert some of their locked funds into a stake of FTX 2.0. Who would say no to this brilliant idea??

1. FTX will use $7 billion of “their own” money to launch FTX 2.0

“Wait a minute, where did they find $7 billion?”

Well, they didn’t. These funds are from the FTX recovery pool that increased from $6.2B —> $7.B because of Bitcoin and other crypto assets pumping.

TLDR: instead of repaying their clients, they plan to launch another casino. Welcome to crypto!

BTW, here’s a leaked document on the team being assembled to run FTX 2.0:

Fun fact: Singer Taylor Swift was the only celebrity who refused FTX advertising money after doing her due diligence. She asked one question: ‘Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?’

Many could learn from Taylor. I’m looking at you, Gary

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

RUSSIA GETS INTO BITCOIN MINING

Russia - the land of dictators, vodka, and road-rage videos is back in the news.

The Russian central bank is investigating bitcoin mining and using it as a settlement between countries.

The article I linked above is in Russian. You can translate it, but some nuance and context will be lost. But you’re in luck. In addition to making fart jokes and memes, your boy speaks Russian. Cyka blyat.

Here’s what’s happening:

1. The Russian authorities have proposed a bill to include Bitcoin in their monetary arsenal

2. Russia wants to get into Bitcoin mining as an experiment

3. They are discussing it in the open

4. They DON’T plan to use it inside the country as legal money

The title is a bit clickbaity. Sorry, not sorry. But still, this is something to keep an eye out for.

Even without the government, Russia has already surpassed Kazakhstan (shoutout to my one Kazakh subscriber) to become the second-largest cryptocurrency mining country in the world with 1 gigawatt of mining power. Only ‘Merica is ahead.

Here’s why it’s significant:

1. Russia is mining lots of Bitcoin. The U.S. government won’t like this and might try to force U.S. miners to censor transactions.

2. Russia is cut off from the global financial system. They could use Bitcoin to circumvent this. BRICS (of which Mother Russia is part) is already doing global trade outside the USD.

Both of these give the U.S. a big reason to try to bully domestic miners until they crack under pressure and start censoring transactions.

There’s one thing the U.S. could do. But it includes a spooky word that makes politicians go full panic mode. Yes, I’m talking about the scary ‘free market.’

Think about it: the U.S. government could have a flourishing mining industry if they only let it be.

I doubt this will happen, though.

Anyways, will Uncle Putin adopt Bitcoin? Nobody knows. But we know that the Western powers have forced Putin to be an adversarial thinker.

This week in a meme

Credit: @TheBTCTherapist

Job of the week

Here comes Cory.

And he is looking for a Head of Client Services to help build a best-in-class customer experience.

Join the Swans and fly away from your fiat job.

From the archive

Fast forward to today, Bitcoin mining is using 58.9% renewables.

We did it, Hal.

Fiat currencies are dying. ☠️

Your purchasing power is melting away like an ice cube. 🧊

Bitcoin fixes this. But since you’re reading this, you already know that.

That’s why I DCA into Bitcoin with Relai - THE best place to stack sats. Yes, I said it. Fight me. Here’s why I think it’s the best (in a meme, of course):

But I work there, so I’m biased. Try it out for yourself by clicking relai.me/baggins.

Use the code BAGGINS to get 0.5% off your fees on ALL purchases forever.

And if you find a better app, let me know.

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.