Rabbit Hole Recap: Week of 2020.03.23
3/26/2020 · 73 min · transcript via mlx
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Key topics
— Bitcoin mining difficulty fell 16% in block 622,944, the second-largest adjustment in history and largest in the ASIC era, as hash rates decline amid coronavirus logistics disruptions and miner shutdowns (Huobi shut down 35% of operations).
— Matt Alborg's analysis of Venezuelan blackouts last year showed Bitcoin trading volume on LocalBitcoins dropped sharply when internet was down, proving Bitcoin is heavily used as a remittance rail by Venezuelans seeking to move value in and out of the country.
— Coinkite released a 9-volt battery adapter for ColdCard and OpenDime to reduce supply-chain and compromised power-brick attack vectors, enabling airgapped signing in the field for $15.
— Zebedee released a gaming SDK explainer video showing developers can integrate Sats as in-game currency via Lightning, positioning Bitcoin gaming as a major emerging use case.
— Matt Odell published a 20-minute Graphene OS installation guide for Pixel 3a phones, allowing users to run de-Googled Android with encrypted Seed Vault backups secured by a 12-word seed phrase.
— Tectonix Geo's Fort Lauderdale spring break tracking video demonstrated real-time surveillance capability to follow device metadata across the country—a capability that could target protests and create location patterns despite claims of anonymization.
Market & price signals
— Bitcoin price hovering around $6,724. Average fee-to-subsidy ratio at 3.54% over the last 2,016 blocks, with average fees around 0.44 BTC. S&P 500 up over 6% despite 3.3 million new jobless claims—stock prices gaining while priced in debased currency; S&P priced in gold remains below prior cycle highs. Stimulus bill passed Senate 96–0 (includes CDC surveillance app funding and bailouts for cruise lines and Boeing) and awaits House vote.
Actionable insights
— Run Graphene OS on a Pixel 3a (refurbished $220–300) paired with Samurai + Dojo + Whirlpool for strong privacy-first smartphone security; use prepaid, cash-bought SIM cards and rotate them to mitigate cell tower triangulation tracking that bypasses location-service toggles.
— Support open-source privacy projects (Graphene OS, Tails, Mulvad) by donating toxic change UTXOs from CoinJoin—these tools are the infrastructure layer for individual sovereignty and will only strengthen as state overreach escalates.
— Monitor gold market delivery disruptions and paper-to-physical spreads: refineries and dealers shutting down may expose structural cracks in paper-claims markets that Bitcoin sidesteps entirely via instant digital settlement.
Episode sponsorships
Paid placements mentioned in this episode. BTC Pods is not sponsored by or affiliated with these advertisers. Links are included so you can find offers mentioned on the show.
— Unchained Capital: Head over to www.unchained-capital.com/vaults to set up collaborative custody vaults where you hold two keys and they hold one, plus access integrated lending with Bitcoin collateral that is never re-hypothecated. They also support open source projects including SLIP 39, Smart Custody, Hermit, and Caravan.
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