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It’s Arsen, bringing you the 12th edition of TLDR - the newsletter that keeps you informed AND entertained.

First, happy Sunday to 1,412 of you reading today. The TLDR Bitcoin fam is growing. Slowly but surely.

I just had a fantastic breakfast. Almost as good as this week’s email.

We’ll start this week’s edition by laughing at “journalists” crying about Bitcoin. So, sit back, grab your 🍿, and be ready to laugh.

Alright, let’s get into it.

Here’s what I got for you this week:

• The New York Times gets rekt by a meme

• I ran the numbers: Bitcoin is crushing it

• Coinbase 🤝 Lightning??

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 4 seconds

MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS WRONG ABOUT BITCOIN (AGAIN)

There is one thing the mainstream media is good at. And that is wasting everyone’s brain cells.

Just when I thought my ex-girlfriend was desperate for attention, the NYT wrote a hit piece on Bitcoin miners in a desperate attempt to stay relevant.

Yes, the same New York Times that predicted TV, airplanes, and computers would never become a thing.

In the article, they called out Bitcoin miners, particularly Riot’s mining facility in Rockdale, TX. According to NYT, miners produce too much CO2 and burden the Texas power grid. In other words, bitcoin is boiling the oceans.

There’s so much wrong in the article:

• They wrote ‘Rockland’ instead of ‘Rockdale.’ This is how you know these journos are clueless: they don’t bother doing even the bare minimum of research

• They used a really hazy picture of a Bitcoin mine to make their air appear polluted. See a thread by @level39. Not cool NYT, not cool.

Oh, and that whole thing about Bitcoin mining being bad for the environment. They’re clueless about that too.

Little did they know Bitcoiners have one secret weapon: we know how to meme.

Riot responded to the article by tweeting with their corporate account a video of Pierre Rochard (VP of Research at Riot (and national treasure)) going around the Rockdale facility measuring CO2 with his little CO2 meter.

He measured:

• Outside the facility

• Inside the facility

• Right next to a mining rig

No CO2 was found. 10/10 science.

But I can’t do justice to that brilliant video. Go watch the video and then come back. I’ll wait.

Welcome back. That was good, wasn’t it?

This is trolling on the highest level. But wait, it gets better! PC Gamer, an online magazine focused on gaming, took the bait and published an article about the absurdity of the video. Perfection.

Can somebody tell the nerds at PC Gamer that their beloved industry consumes more energy than all Bitcoin miners? Thanks.

The Riot’s video now has over 5 million views and more like than the original tweet by the NYT. This was a mother of all ratios.

Anyways, here’s an excellent rebuttal by the Bitcoin Policy Institute on the absurdity of NYT’s piece.

And remember, every time you have a dumb idea, pitch it to NYT. They will probably publish it.

Credit: @BTCsessions

BITCOIN IS CRUSHING IT

Now, I love a good massage. But what I love even more is some bullish Bitcoin numbers. Let me massage them into your brain:

1. Bitcoin hits an ATH

No, I’m not bullshitting. Bitcoin actually hit an ATH in inflation-stricken Argentina.

“But this is just because their currency is hyperinflating!!1”

Also true. But the more significant theme here is that Bitcoin is a safe haven for people living under hyperinflation. While the Argentine banks restrict access to the USD, bitcoin is there for them as an alternative store of value.

1. MicroStrategy is now profitable on its 140,000 Bitcoin

With an average buy price of $29,803 and Bitcoin hitting $30,000, Big Mike is finally up on his investment. But you know what’s even bigger? His cojones. Saylor put his money where his mouth and never sold a single sat while he was underwater.

And having big balls come with big rewards. Microstrategy is up 115%. For comparison, Apple is up only 29%.

And it looks like Saylor has quite a few fangirls too. Meet Blackrock, Bank of America, and Fidelity, who purchases 75M worth of Mictrostrategy stock in Q1. The biggest financial institutions are betting on Bitcoin. Nothing to see here.

1. Bitcoin dominance is rising

No, your perverts, not that kind of domination.

Bitcoin’s domination index is at 47% - the highest since 2021 and over double that of mETH.

Bitcoin is king, and there is no second best. Ask Big Mike.

COINBASE ADDS LIGHTNING

Guys, he said it!

Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, finally said the B-word. And not only that, he announced that he will be integrating Lightning into his exchange.

Coinbase has 110M users. This is big.

That being said, Brian and co have some catching up to do on the topic of Lightning:

• Brian tried sending $100 in BTC over LN to our boy Joe Hall. Joe never got his sats. Hmm, I guess Brian is an LN noob.

• Coinbase PR team replied to press inquiries that Brian is most likely baching his Bitcoin sends. Anyone who has used LN knows there is no "batching" happening in LN. Okay, they’re definitely LN noobs.

• Brian claims he’s been bullish on LN since inception but has zero mentions of it on his Twitter profile (search ‘from:brian_armstrong lightning’ on the bird site to see for yourself). Brian claims his tweets auto-delete after a while, so there is no search history. How Convenient.

Only time will tell if Coinbase will deliver on its promise to add LN. Remember, LN has been around (in a usable form) for over 5 years. Coinbase hasn’t even looked into its direction.

I guess they’re busy launching new shitcoin projects and winning insider trading cases. If LN had a shitcoin attached to it, they would’ve added it the next day. That’s how they roll at Coinbase.

Meet Brian, a fellow LN maxi:

Credit: @Corndalorian (on Nostr)

This week in a meme

Credit: @RD_btc

Job of the week

That’s right - We’re hiring a German-speaking Support Manager to lead the support team and keep customer satisfaction as high as Snoop Dogg.

The best part? You get to work with me 😏

From the archive

That one time The Bitcoin Jesus Judas flipped the bird and ragequit an interview after John Carvalho kept calling his shitcoin ‘bcash’.

Good memories.

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.

If you like what you read, please do “add to address book” or reply to this to this email (it helps with email deliverability). If you don’t, you can unsubscribe below.

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.