Excuse us as we make a short detour into some price talk. Last week, we wrote about the CFTC and FBI coming down on BitMEX, a company that has used bitcoin to bring innovative derivatives to the market using bitcoin, contributed to Bitcoin development, and written some of the best technical and industry commentary on the planet. This Orwellian overreach by US regulators is very sad to see, but was expected by anyone who was paying attention.

BitMEX has been warning users of the fact that their hand was being forced to compel their users to divulge personal information if they wanted to continue trading on the platform. This should have been a canary in the coal mine for anyone paying attention that BitMEX was feeling some heat from regulators as a result of the way they operated their business for six years. When the hens finally came home to roost and BitMEX's executive team was charged with federal crimes and their CTO was pulled from the comfort of his home and tossed in a cage for providing the world with an innovative financial derivatives product that free thinking individuals decided was of a sufficient quality to use, the price of bitcoin remained shockingly steady. Falling only slightly and recovering over the course of the next few days as users pulled their bitcoin from the exchange en masse.

It seems that the market was prepared for the action taken against BitMEX. However, are we out of the woods yet? Is there something the market is missing at this given point in time? Your Uncle Marty thinks so.

The charges against BitMEX were a loud shot across the bow of the industry. Signaling to me that we are about to see an aggressive onslaught from incompetent regulators who have no problem letting the big banks facilitate crime on a scale that would make Al Capone blush. These people do not like Bitcoin. If widely adopted and by people who self-custody their UTXOs, Bitcoin will severely reduce the Kleptocratic Crony-favoring State's ability to maintain a two-tiered justice system that favors the connected elite over the Common Man. These people do not want to see the Common Man succeed or, more importantly, make decisions for himself. They want to control every aspect of the Common Man's life, and the most effective way to do this is to control how he secures and moves his money around the world. The individual doesn't have true autonomy if they are not allowed to decide how and when they spend their hard earned money.

That is why believe the BitMEX news is just the beginning. I expect the losers at FATF and the freedom hating countries that comply with their recommended regulations are going to begin applying the terrible Travel Rule to bitcoin exchanges at some point within the next year. This will mean that exchanges will be forced to prevent their users from sending their UTXOs to a wallet that isn't fully KYC'd. Put another way, users will not be able to send their UTXOs to personal custody. This is akin to not allowing individuals to take cash out of ATMs, which we already know these evil people want to take away from the individual. Preventing these same individuals from taking possession of their UTXOs is the only logical conclusion of the course we are on. Expect it.

Unless individuals stop focusing on the false framing of Red Team v. Blue Team and start directing their ire towards the true driver of inequality and the disintegration of the social fabric around the world, the Central Banking system and the banking/financial system that feeds off of its tit, we will be doomed to a future in which every transaction is tracked and given a thumbs up or thumbs down by the kleptocratic elite. Any remaining semblance of Freedom and Liberty in the Digital Age will cease to exist.

Time to sack up and engage, bitches.

Final thought...

Washing bottles, a torturous but necessary task that you never think of until you have a child.