Tariff Troubles - #403
TL;DR - Trump troubles markets. Bitcoin tumbles. A liquidation lesson.
Reader,
Tariffs. Turn overs. Turmoil.
ByBit, robbed. Billions inflow ETFs. War on Privacy rages.
February's wild.
The Insight
President says, "Tariff." Markets fall. Bitcoin too.
"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."—John Maynard Keynes
Price drops. Panic spreads. Nerves show. "The basis of optimism is sheer terror," Oscar Wilde wrote.
"Nowadays, people know the price of everything and the value of nothing," Oscar Wilde added.
Bitcoin isn't the ticker. It's power. Freedom.
Know what you own.
Toolkit
Open-source sovereignty tools. We're gonna need them...
Ollama
Self-hosted LLMs.
Private. Local. Offline. Small learning curve. Many LLM choices.
Worth exploring.
Tails OS
Privacy focused OS (operating system). Open-source.
Runs off USB. Amnesia state (forgets). TOR oriented. Air-gapped. Top OpSec (operational security). Great DIY cold storage.
Try it out.
Lessons From the Road
Borrowed against Bitcoin. Took a loan. Collateral, not cashing out.
Poured it into a project. Travel. Life. Testing the edges.
Bitcoin soared. I exhaled. Built steady.
Then the drop. Tariffs barked. ByBit got robbed. Liquidity vanished.
I wasn’t watching. Too busy crafting. Email hit: “Add collateral.”
Gut twisted. Charts glared back. Bitcoin had soared before—could’ve refinanced, paid it off. Didn’t. Still shaping my thing.
Paused. Thought. Breathed.
Another email. Markets bleeding out.
Stopped. Stared. Decided. “Let it go.”
Why not add? Savings stay mine.
Bad loan? No. Made sense then. Building takes time. Bull market fooled me.
John McAfee said, “The world chooses to think what the world thinks.” I chose to borrow. To build. Market chose to sell.
Borrowing bred false hope. My pace didn’t match the ticker.
Still building. Less Bitcoin now. Stings like hell.
Seneca wrote, “Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a person to rehearse his freedom. A person who has learned to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”
Most hodl. Fear using it. Using means losing.
Bitcoin might climb forever. Measured how? In fiat?
Risk and loss—“death”—teach what holding can’t.
Seneca again: “There is but one chain holding us in fetters, and that is our love of life.”
Live Bitcoin, not just stack it. See it clear.
The Essays
Two short stories.
Signals
February was busy. Let's dive in...
1. Bitcoin Price Crashes
Fell 25% from $109,241 to $78,363. ByBit’s $1.5B hack stung. Tariffs loomed.
2. ByBit Robbed
North Korean hackers nabbed $1.5B in Ethereum. Biggest heist in history.
3. Trump’s SEC Shifts
Crypto Task Force under Uyeda. Trump’s “crypto capital” hums. Reserve talk grows.
4. Layer-2 Networks Grow
Lightning scales. Unbank-Voltage: 40,000 spots.
5. FTX Pays Creditors
$1.2B to small creditors—under $50K. 2022 scars linger. Trust shifts.
6. SEC drops Cases
Cases against Coinbase, Uniswap, Robinhood Crypto, OpenSea, Gemini, and Consensys (MetaMask) dropped. New leadership. Pro-crypto administration.
7. Signal Sweden Saga
Sweden wants backdoors. Signal may exit by ‘26. Gangs vs. cyber risk.
8. England Ends Encryption
UK demands iCloud access. Apple drops encryption plans. EU “Chat Control” nears.
9. DeepSeek Scandal Hits
AI spills secrets. South Korea bans. U.S. eyes gov’t block.
10. Tornado Cash Battles
Storm fights ruling. Pertsev freed, monitored. Privacy code on trial.
Memepool
Free to share.
Community
New section. Focus on community. Keep eyes on.
Bitcoin Bay
Sound Money Soirée. A fundraiser. Set for June 14. Teaming up with Bitcoin Day. Panels. Workshops. Speakers.
Free Samourai
Ungovernable Podcast splits LN tips with Samourai and Bugle. Donate direct. freesamourai@getalby.com
Details: https://freesamourai.com/
Support: https://p2prights.org/donate.html
Free Roger
Roger Ver, "Bitcoin Jesus," lost his final appeal in Spain and faces extradition to the U.S.
Details: https://www.freerogernow.org/
Conclusion
Tariffs crash. Privacy bleeds. Bitcoin dips.
Hodling’s not enough. Use it. Lose it. Build it.
Sovereignty’s no stack—it’s a life.
Rare Passenger / block height 885 811
Very good read! Will definitely be looking into getting those LLMS running off of tails, thatd be real cool. Especially for how things are looking as of late