nic carter

@SelectivBreeder Cry about it

The "Third-Worldist" Iran is led by mathematicians writing books on Plato and Kant, while the "pro-Western" US is led by religious retards gloating about destroying Europe's energy supply

@nadertheory @ryaneshea Every word of this is 100% correct

Operation chokepoint was a 100% real effort to de-bank the crypto industry, and I experienced it first-hand. Nobody who actually experienced it talks about it because it's embarrassing to get de-banked, but I don't care anymore and the story needs to be told. I will tell you exactly how it worked, about a dark practice called "subpoena-sniping," and what made it so evil. In the past three years I have had over ten bank accounts and brokerages, and got kicked out of every single one except my last two, which I have been using for a while now. There was a day when both my main bank account AND my backup bank account were closed on the same day and I had to walk down a street full of banks in Beverly Hills just trying to get a new account opened so I could operate. The worst, by far, though, was Amex. They kicked me out and voided over 4 million points I never spent worth over $40k usd, which is why you should "always be dumping" your points (cc @stoolpresidente). But more on that later... The way de-banking works is this: People in the political administration, could be the president or uppity members of congress like Elizabeth Warren, decide that they don't like a particular person or a particular industry (crypto, marijuana, etc...). They could call the banks and tell them to stop banking that industry explicitly, but that's actually not even necessary. Instead, they can have a regulator like the SEC just start issuing subpoenas to everyone's bank who works in that industry. Much less work and much lighter-touch (low-level employees at the SEC can issue a subpoena without much paperwork). A bank's reaction to a subpoena from a federal agency is almost always to immediately shut down that person's bank account. With most banks that means you instantly can't log in, can't access your money, and, best of all, you have to wait for a snail-mail check to get your money, which you can't actually deposit because you don't have a bank account (the irony...). And did I mention the check takes a week to clear even after you've deposited it into your new bank? This is why I always have a main bank account and a "backup" bank account, always. Why a check, why not a wire transfer? It lets the banks sit on your money and earn interest on it for longer. Yes, that's actually the reason... But it gets even better: When you lose your bank account, they don't even tell you why it happened, they just stonewall you completely, even if you've been a customer for over a decade. My favorite experience with this was with a neobank where I actually knew the founder and HE couldn't even tell me why they debanked me because the decision was made by their partner bank, which wouldn't tell THEM the reason, so he didn't even know it. Insane! The way I found out about this practice was actually by talking to lawyers after things got serious with my SEC case. Apparently, the most common tactic when the SEC or DOJ go after someone is to try and de-bank them by throwing subpoenas at all of their financial institutions as fast as they can open them. We called it "subpoena-sniping" and it was such a well-known and disruptive practice that multiple law firms actually recommended I wire them a lot of money up-front to "keep it safe" so that I wouldn't lose my ability to pay them halfway through what we were doing. Luckily, only thanks to crypto, that wasn't necessary... My top advice for Amex customers in particular is to always be dumping your points. The reason is that a high points balance is viewed as a liability by Amex, and thus makes it more likely they'll randomly decide that your account is non-compliant, even without a subpoena (I learned this from lawyers as well). Put another way, accounts with a lot of points are "expensive" to Amex, and so they will look for any excuse to close them before you can cash them out. In my case that meant losing over 4 million points worth over $40k usd. The crazy thing is they took my points even though I lived in New York at the time, and even though NY literally passed a law and SUED Amex precisely to stop the practice of closing accounts to steal points. Just think about it for a minute: Enough people got mad at Amex for points-stealing that NY, a place where Amex has regulatory capture, passed a LAW to ban it (which I can confirm from first-hand experience they are completely ignoring). If that's not a sign you should always be dumping those points then I really don't know what is... To this day, Amex is the only financial institution that I actually lost money with. Even the sketchiest crypto exchanges I've used over the years never did something as greasy as what Amex did, let alone after being a customer for over a decade. Now for a list of some banks and brokerages that kicked me out, just to name and shame explicitly: Bank of America, Fidelity, Chase, Wells Fargo, Amex, First Republic (rest in peace), SVB (rest in peace), Webull, Mechanics Bank (got desperate lol), Bank of the Orient (also lol). In many cases I came in through a relationship, had a contact at the bank, and was happily banking for years, sometimes over a decade-- none of it mattered, I was out the second a subpoena came in, with zero explanation. Also funny story about SVB: By pure coincidence they debanked me ONE WEEK before they went insolvent-- you can't make this stuff up. There are also three neobanks that kicked me out but I know the founders, I like them, and it was the underlying partner bank's fault not their fault so I won't name them. Now, thankfully, it's all over and I can talk about these things. But the problem isn't actually resolved. Banks still auto-cancel your account when they get a government subpoena, the process still sucks for people when it happens, and every bank and brokerage that kicked me out in the past is still inaccessible to me. Even though "operation chokepoint" ended under Trump, everyone who was affected by it previously is still affected. One solution to this problem is new banks that are willing to stand up against this practice, and that's why I'm excited about things like Palmer Luckey's Erebhor and William Hockey's Column. But it only works if they make it a point to stand by their customers through thick and thin. I hope they will do this. Of course, we all know the ultimate solution, though: Crypto itself. The very thing that scared the politicians into de-banking us in the first place will be their eventual downfall. They can delay it but, thankfully, they can't stop it.

it's completely possible to be a right winger and not spend an ounce of mental energy on charlie kirk conspiracies, inter podcaster turf wars, Israel/the Jews/Bibi or anything to do with nick fuentes or candace owens. i do it every day, it's great, i highly recommend it

idk how to explain this but my morning coffee and this dog have the same energy

@Crowd33 this is a survey of the 26 most notable experts in quantum physics /QC. their sentiment matters obviously

@nic_carter You're treating fundamental physics and engineering breakthroughs like an asset bubble where technical and sentiment analysis matters. Sorry software nerd, you actually need to know the facts on the ground this time

"Recent advancements have been so significant that this year’s opinions are the most optimistic for the “within 10 years” timeframe that we have ever recorded in our series of surveys: half of the respondents felt the likelihood of such a computer within 10 years was “about 50%” or more likely. By coarse-graining all the experts’ responses, one arrives at an average likelihood of between 28% and 49% within 10 years, that is, by roughly 2035" - Global Risk Institute's 2025 Quantum Threat Timeline (survey of quantum experts) globalriskinstitute.org/publication/qu…

these are the experts surveyed. the elite of the elite when it comes to QC

@BitPaine What if instead of getting rid of them, we give these people billions of taxpayer dollars and nuclear weapons?

IRGC is fucked. Strikes that cost the royals billions in O&G revenue leave no path to de-escalation. The GCC won’t allow them to continue to exist in any form going forward, because such a threat - no longer merely theoretical - cannot be abided. They will be fully behind US/Israel dismantling the regime for good. Leaving them alive now means they will live with this threat in their own backyard forever. It will mean persistently high costs of insurance etc. for all of their facilities. Indeed, the IRGC know this, meaning they only struck these targets because they already know it’s over for them. This is a temper tantrum you only throw when you feel betrayed and you know you are cooked.

@obodur @VentureCoinist @ThinkingUSD @SoskaKyle @TheBlueMatt @laurashin It’ll stop being a threat when they actually do something about it

@nic_carter @VentureCoinist @ThinkingUSD @SoskaKyle You still haven't addressed the interview with @TheBlueMatt by @laurashin To me, quantum threat is no more.

The anti-doom trade: Hormuz Strait re-opens, Iran war ends <60days, Ai diffusion slower than expected, BTC mitigates quantum risk, Tradfi onchain migration accelerates, fed cuts rates, twitter solves slopbots Long $BTC $ETH $HYPE $ZEC $SOL Short Oil & doomer newsletters

@_SUPER7X @LevineJonathan libs literally did this to kyle kashuv your game your rules

@LevineJonathan The idea that anyone should care that over a decade ago as a teen she said “nigga” is embarrassing.

NEW from me Rama Duwaji — the wife of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani— shared several posts glorifying Palestinian terrorism on old social media accounts that remain active. Duwaji also used the N-word. freebeacon.com/democrats/zohr…

@drumulboberelor @LevineJonathan you guys cancelled kyle kashuv for the same thing cry me a river

@LevineJonathan she was 15 at the time. i feel like that's pretty important context

institutional incentives devs have a good thing going; they don't want to pivot hard and dedicate resources to a really hard technical + governance problem. they are highly risk averse. they are just hoping the problem goes away bigtime holders / influential bitcoiners don't want to acknowledge the risk because they don't want to spook markets. kind of a "code of silence" type thing, never admit weakness. the only entities that can break the deadlock are the big asset managers and fiduciaries but they don't want to give people the impression they can "control" or direct bitcoin core. eventually they will have to act though.

@nic_carter might be true but it's so strange @ThinkingUSD & @SoskaKyle talked about this a few weeks ago on spaces: how it seems like NOBODY is dedicating resources/time proportionate to where it ranks for Bitcoin's risk factors blackrock, saylor, devs, whales...go down the list

@eigenrobot this is the worst thing that has happened to me in some time

abominable

@LevineJonathan well she married a black guy so

NYC First Lady Rama Duwaji used the N-word in an X post from 2013 #selection-525.0-518.5" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">archive.ph/Z2DC4#selectio…

@LevineJonathan hard or soft R?

@LowBeta i am simply choosing to ignore this flawed neologism

It's official: "onchain" not "on-chain" Footnote 1 from SEC guidance yesterday

I am not that annoyed, I get the domestic situation EU leaders are facing - Trump has also ruffled their feathers a ton lately over Greenland and Ukraine - they are betting that the US can wrap this up quickly without too much disruption.. i think they're making a mistake, but then again i dont think elected leaders in europe would actually have the popular support if they wanted to send ships over

@nic_carter Your annoyance with Europe staying out of the war is getting in the way of an otherwise decent analysis of the situation. Don't forget it took the US 2 years to show up in WW2...

it's uncanny how the Straits crisis and its reverberations was completely anticipated by peter zeihan in this 2020 book core thesis: - the US as a reluctant increasingly isolationist hegemon unwilling or unable to maintain food energy security for the whole planet - the US able to weather this transition as it has the continental resources it needs, but its erstwhile freeloader allies totally hung out to dry in the new order - no hegemon willing or able to fill the gap; no one else post '45 has the blue water navy and power projection ability that the US had; trade becomes more disordered and more expensive - trade becomes more regionalized, countries dependent on seamlessly functioning global food/fertilizer/energy trade are big big losers, globalization retreats haven't seen any good counter arguments to this thesis. the realignment is happening in real time. listen to what the Euros are saying about the Strait and their energy security and see what Trump is saying about Europe. (not saying anyone is "right" or "morally justified" just calling balls and strikes)

because the post-1945 order was explictly set up that way. US does all the military spending for EU+UK+Japan+close allies, they are off the hook for military, we benefit from being the banker to all these places, dollar stays global reserve, they trade with us, etc etc. the order is collapsing, and now we are rethinking the whole system

@nic_carter I guess I don't understand why Germany, a country with zero naval power is allowed to become an export giant on the back of our Navy?