Rabbit Hole Recap #174: Much to be thankful for
11/24/2021 · 154 min · transcript via mlx
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Key topics
— El Salvador announced Bitcoin City, a 0% tax jurisdiction powered by geothermal volcano energy, alongside a $1 billion bond ($500M for Bitcoin purchases, $500M for mining infrastructure and city construction).
— Samsung is building a $17 billion chip foundry in Taylor, Texas, diversifying ASIC manufacturing away from Taiwan and South Korea—a bullish development for Bitcoin mining decentralization.
— Odell Beckham Jr. is converting his entire Los Angeles Rams salary (~$4.5M) to Bitcoin via Cash App, joining a trend of professional athletes accepting Bitcoin payments.
— The US paused diplomatic relations with El Salvador and the IMF issued warnings about Bitcoin adoption, reflecting institutional resistance to El Salvador's monetary sovereignty strategy.
— Fold App partnered with Pokémon GO creator Niantic to drop satoshis at physical locations via augmented reality, enabling location-based Bitcoin rewards.
— Bitcoin's post-China mining ban recovery demonstrated the network's technical robustness (difficulty adjustments) and social coordination through free-market relocation of hash rate globally.
Market & price signals
— Bitcoin trading around $56,980–$57,000 (discussed as "cuck bucks"). Market cap holding above $1 trillion. Block height at 711,171; next difficulty retarget (~0.6% upward) estimated November 27, 2021. Mempool at ~6,000 transactions; Whirlpool capacity steady at 4,116.47 BTC. Hosts note price has not fully priced in China mining ban impact and subsequent hash rate recovery—described as "the most bullish fundamental of the whole year."
Actionable insights
— Bitcoin's imminent foundry additions (Samsung Texas, TSMC Arizona, Intel, Texas Instruments) create long-term optionality for domestic ASIC manufacturing and repair, reducing supply chain concentration risks and enabling lower-cost production for US miners.
— El Salvador's Bitcoin bond ($500M at 6.5% coupon, dividend payouts in Bitcoin) targets institutional bond buyers seeking yield in a compressed-rate environment; retail participation possible at $100 minimum but bond cannot outperform Bitcoin by design—evaluate risk against Bitfinex/Liquid/Tether custody layers.
— Remain vigilant against regulatory capture in the Bitcoin mining layer: large public miners (Riot, Marathon, Hut 8) and ESG-aligned schemes present censorship risks; distributed hash rate across jurisdictions and profitable small operators are more resilient than centralized corporate entities.
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.
— Cash App helps you stack sats and stonks with fractional shares as little as $1, instant withdrawal to personal wallets, and an auto-buy feature for hands-free DCA. Use promo code stackingsats (one word) when you download the app to receive $10, and $10 will be contributed to OWLS Lacrosse; terms apply. Bitcoin services by Block, Inc.—see https://cash.app/legal/podcast for Bitcoin disclosures.
— Unchained Capital eliminates single points of failure in custody through their Vault product, a two-of-three collaborative custody multisig wallet where you control two keys and Unchained holds one, ensuring you can always move your sats without intermediaries. Their white-glove concierge package takes you from zero to a thousand "cuck bucks" worth of sats secured in a multisig vault, includes hardware wallets, video calls, and derivation path backup; use code TFTC for $50 off at Unchained.com.
— Compass Mining helps you get into Bitcoin mining by providing easy bundles for buying and hosting miners, handling energy costs and miner acquisition so you can mine Bitcoin profitably. Visit https://compassmining.io to get started.
— Braiins (B-R-A-I-I-N-S, with two I's) is a leader in the mining industry running Slush Pool (oldest mining pool since 2010) and creating free and open-source firmware (Braiins OS+) to give miners more control over ASICs and help them stack more sats. They are leading Stratum V2 to help decentralize the mining pool protocol and are hiring Rust developers, system admins, and hardware engineers. Visit https://braiins.com/ and https://insights.braiins.com/profitability-calculator for firmware downloads and mining analytics.