GM.

It’s Arsen.

First, happy Sunday to 1,633 of you reading today.

I have a special announcement to make: I have rebranded TLDR Bitcoin —> Bitcoin Therapy 🧠

Few reasons why:

1. I’ve partnered up with my boy Bitcoin Therapist. You’re probably already familiar with his work (I’ve used his memes in every email so far). He has quickly become one of my favorite educators (and shitposters). Our collaboration on this newsletter is a no-brainer to me.

2. There is another newsletter in an adjacent industry with a similar name (TLDR). I want to avoid confusion.

Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. The content will also stay the same (it will only get better).

Alright, let’s get to the good stuff.

Here’s what I got for you this week:

• TradFi is taking over crypto

• Bitcoin mass exodus from exchanges has begun

• Nostr surpasses 1 million zaps⚡

Estimated read time: 2 minutes and 54 seconds

TRADFI IS THE NEW COOL KID ON THE BLOCK

*TradFI has entered the chat*

And that is how the age of nerds ended: the suits came in and gave CZ and Brian Armstrong a good wedgie. And with perfect timing too. Too perfect if you ask me…

Now, I am not much of a conspiracy theorist at this rag, but there is 100% some fuckery going on between Wall Street and the US government. 

Here’s what we know about the SEC’s recent actions:

1. Dropped a TRO (temporary restraining order) on Binance

2. Sued Coinbase

3. Denied the GBTC conversion to ETF for the 69th time

And only after a few days, the TradFi crew dropped a bunch of bombs:

1. Deutsche Bank applied for a crypto custody license

2. Blackrock ($10T AUM), Invesco ($1.5T AUM) and WisdomTree ($87B AUM) all file for a bitcoin ETF

3. Fidelity, Citadel, and Charles Schwab team up to launch a new exchange. They call it ‘EDX.’ Because using creativity is now allowed.

Coincidence?

Wall Street parasites are clearly in bed with the government regulators

It all smells very fishy, and it isn’t my socks. Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is in full force.

“But institutions entering bitcoin is bullish, right!!?”

Well, it’s nuanced:

1. It’s true: TradFi entering the space legitimizes the industry and makes Bitcoin accessible to the masses

2. BlackRock and the rest of the TradFi crew will be offering paper Bitcoin - something antithetical to Bitcoin’s ethos of self-sovereignty

Our take? The institutions are coming one by one - regardless of what you want.

Accumulate wisely. The green dildos are coming.

BITCOIN MASS EXODUS HAS STARTED

The end is nigh. The great migration has started.

Bitcoin is moving away from exchanges. Some bullish stats:

• 2020: 16% of Bitcoin supply was on exchanges

• 2023: 6.5% of Bitcoin supply is held on exchanges

That’s a five-year low.

But why is this happening? Well, few reasons:

• Fraudulent exchanges (looking at you, SBF)

• Lawsuits against exchanges (*cough Binance cough*)

• People learning about self custody

The last point is crucial: people want their coins in self-custody. The market has spoken. This is excellent news because Bitcoin is only getting scarcer.

Not convinced? Let’s look at some quick mafs.

1. BlackRock, the financial giant entering the Bitcoin space, manages $10 trillion in assets

2. Let’s assume about 10% of all BTC is held on exchanges. This is $50 billion

3. Just 0.5% of BlackRock money moving into Bitcoin could buy every available coin. Just a half percent.

Still not convinced?? Some more mafs:

There is over 500,000 more Bitcoin that haven’t moved in 10 years than there are on exchanges.

So yeah, Bitcoin is scarce af.

And don’t be like Andrew Tate, who lost $560K Bitcoin to Romanian prosecutors.

True Top G’s keep their Bitcoin in cold storage. I don’t make the rules.

Sorry to interrupt your reading. I have something to share.

I've written a ‘Bitcoin as Money’ research paper for my university. I’ve only shared it with my professor and kept it private until now.

Share Bitcoin Therapy with 1 person, and I will send you the research paper.

NOSTR IS TAKING OVER THE WORLD

Well, not quite.

But it recently surpassed over 1 million zaps (zap = a type of Nostr-specific lightning transaction)!

So why is Nostr taking off? Few reasons:

• Managed to attract a vibrant developer community

• Added more features that users want

• General apathy toward centralized social media platforms

All of these combined have helped Nostr bootstrap organically.

Here are the current stats for Nostr:

• Half a million users

• 110 million published events

• 11 BTC transmitted via Nostr/LN

• 1 million zaps

The two last stats showcase how moronic the "Bitcoin Lightning does not work" h8ers are.

This is not something you should sleep on.

If you’re not paying attention, you probably should be.

This week in a meme

Therapist’s advice: start boating

Job of the week

Our friends over at Bitcoin Racing are looking for a Marketing Intern.

While it’s an unpaid position, it’s an excellent opportunity to gain valuable experience and add some proof of work to your resume.

Perfect for students looking to break into the industry!

From the archive

Economic badassery. I like that.

Credit: @pete_rizzo_

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 & Therapist

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