The Czech National Bank Has Bitcoin on Its Balance Sheet

Marty's Bent

This was a pleasant surprise to wake up to this morning; the Czech National Bank announcing that they have allocated $1,000,000 for a test portfolio of "bitcoin and stablecoins" as they attempt to wrap their minds around the emergent digital money and diversify balance sheet reserves. The Czech National Bank may not be the most popular or most consequential central bank, but it is a central bank nonetheless and it has added a small amount of bitcoin to it's $100B+ balance sheet. A small step for the Czech National Bank, a giant leap for mankind.

We've been saying it for years in this rag and on the podcast, bitcoin's incentives are simply too strong. One cannot simply look away from what they see once they see it. The trajectory of Industrial Age fiat currencies is toward consistent and accelerating debasement while bitcoin's monetization is well under way and only set to continue at an accelerating rate. Individuals, businesses, states, nation states, bankers and central bankers are being forced to reckon with this reality. As our friend Conner Brown stated earlier today, this is a true zero to one moment.

via Conner Brown

This is a beautiful thing to see and it is much needed in the current environment. You'll understand this if you've been reading this letter over the course of the last month. The more wins bitcoin gets in terms of institutions deemed to be legitimate in the eyes of the masses that begin to take it seriously, the better. A legitimate and stable central bank is one of those institutions.

The question that remains is how slowly or quickly other central banks will move from here on out. As Conner notes in his tweet, we still have a lot of work to do in the United States. From my perspective, the Trump administration is not going hard enough to legitimize bitcoin in the United States. Laws need to be passed to enshrine the strategic reserve in a way that respects individual rights and puts forth a reasonable accumulation strategy. Developers need protections enshrined in laws that enable them to release free and open source software that doesn't hold them liable for end user activity.

To that last point, the courts are failing miserably at this as we speak. Earlier today the SDNY wrote a laughable response to Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm in which they claimed that Tornado Cash's UI facilitated transactions on behalf of users. Utterly pathetic.

via Laz

If we're being objective, bitcoin is currently under attack by many "authorities" in the United States. This needs to change as soon as humanly possible, digital property rights and expression need to be enshrined into law, and Americans need to be able to sprint toward a full on integration of bitcoin throughout the economy while the government sits back and lets us do our thing.

Good on the Czech National Bank for taking a bold, creative and innovative stand.

Gun Registration Systems Are Ineffective for Crime Solving

Dr. John Lott presented compelling evidence that gun registration and licensing systems have consistently failed to solve crimes across multiple jurisdictions spanning decades. He detailed how Hawaii's system since 1960, Pennsylvania's since the 1930s, and programs in Chicago, Washington DC, New York, and Maryland have produced zero documented cases of crimes solved through registration data. The Honolulu police chief's admission that they couldn't identify a single crime solved despite dedicating 50,000 hours of police time annually exemplifies this systemic failure. New York and Maryland's decisions to end their ballistic fingerprinting programs after 15 years and $45 million in expenditures with no results further demonstrates the ineffectiveness of these approaches.

"These systems primarily serve to track law-abiding gun owners for potential future confiscation." - Dr. John Lott

Dr. Lott argued that the true purpose of these systems becomes clear when examining their actual implementation. Connecticut's attempted confiscation and similar actions in California, Chicago, and DC reveal the real agenda behind registration requirements, despite initial governmental promises not to confiscate. This pattern suggests that registration systems function more as surveillance tools for law-abiding citizens than as effective crime-fighting measures, raising serious concerns about government overreach and constitutional rights.

Check out the full podcast here for more on constitutional carry laws, defensive gun use statistics, and media bias in crime reporting.

Headlines of the Day

Ricardo Salinas Advises Taking Mortgage to Buy Bitcoin

Cash App Launches Bitcoin Payment Feature

Emory University Increases Bitcoin ETF Holdings by 91%

Taiwan Studies Bitcoin as Strategic Reserve

October Economic Reports Lost Due to Government Shutdown

Simple Proof Partners with El Salvador for Bitcoin Records

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