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⌐◪-◪ → Happy birthday, Bitcoin!

Today, January 3, 2025, marks the 16th anniversary of Bitcoin's creation. It all started when Satoshi Nakamoto mined the Genesis Block on this day in 2009.

The Genesis Block famously included the front-page headline of The Times: "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." This critique of the centralized banking system perfectly captures Bitcoin's ethos.

Crazy to think how far we’ve come. Bitcoin is now the 7th largest asset in the world, larger than silver and inching closer to surpassing the biggest tech companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and NVIDIA.

Very grateful for the world’s first public digital payments infrastructure and all the freedoms it has and will continue to create for mankind. Today should be an international holiday.

Cheers to Satoshi and cheers to Bitcoin! Please join us in Specs.Chat to celebrate!

⌐◪-◪ → Do Kwon is not backing down!

Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, has been extradited from Montenegro to the United States, where he officially pleaded not guilty to fraud charges related to the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin. For context, the crash resulted in approximately $40 billion in losses.

Kwon currently faces up to 130 years in prison for charges of conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and market manipulation.

His trial is set to progress with a court conference on January 8th—I’m hoping Tiffany Fong will be on the job so we can all get a front-row seat to the drama.

Imagine if he ends up in the same prison as SBF, Diddy, and Luigi.

I wouldn’t count it out. As Elon famously says, “The most entertaining outcome is the most likely.” Lol.

⌐◪-◪ → Is it finally over?!?!

FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried’s infamous crypto exchange, has finally begun repaying creditors in the amount of $16B—coincidentally on Bitcoin’s 16th birthday.

The court-approved repayment process will see its first wave of payments within 60 days. A large portion of that money could very well flow right back into crypto, sparking a potential bull run.

It’s nice to see the FTX saga finally coming to an end, with creditors getting repaid and SBF slowly fading into irrelevance.

With that said, I’m sure this won’t be the last major implosion for crypto—the space is still very young.

Remember guys — not your keys, not your crypto. If you’re not sure how to safely custody, I’d start with Safe—our sponsor and the same multi-sig Vitalik uses for his stash.

The path to generational wealth has never been more clear, simply dollar-cost average Bitcoin and hodl. Don’t get too greedy chasing profits in memecoins, because in that arena the odds of getting rekt are far greater than the odds of winning.

Stay safe out there.

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