Taurus - Bitcoin Bull

Galaxy Digital's latest research note on Bitcoin and quantum computing cuts through the usual noise. Yes, quantum is a real threat. Galaxy estimates roughly 7 million BTC or $470 billion may be vulnerable. But not all Bitcoin is equally exposed. Legacy wallet formats, reused addresses, and older outputs are the main risk. Bitcoin's UTXO model actually provides structural protection. Public keys are only revealed when coins are spent. More importantly, developers are actively working on it. BIP 360 is the leading quantum-resistant proposal. Ethan Heilman says it has received more comments than any other BIP in Bitcoin's history. Matt Corallo says yes, developers are working on quantum resistance. The governance challenge is real. Bitcoin upgrades are slow by design. But Galaxy makes a sharp point. There is no constituency that benefits from Bitcoin being vulnerable to quantum attack. That alignment of incentives may prove decisive. Bitcoin is not sleepwalking into this threat. The work is already underway.

Something interesting is happening in Bitcoin derivatives right now. Bitcoin is holding firm near $70,000 while gold and stocks sold off this week. Yet traders on Deribit are still buying downside protection around the $50,000 level. They are guarding against a roughly $20k drawdown even as spot price remains resilient. Meanwhile the oil shock is worse than headlines suggest. Dubai crude hit $166.80 per barrel while Brent sat around $113. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Roughly 18% of global crude supply is now offline due to the Iran conflict. The derivatives market is telling a nuanced story. Not panic but targeted protection. Put spreads and risk reversals rather than outright crash bets. Negative funding rates for 18 straight days. The longest streak since December 2022. The market is thinking clearly. Not panicking.

The US added nearly $247 billion to its national debt in just the first three weeks of March. Total debt now sits at $39.02 trillion. A former IMF deputy director is warning that foreign investors may be losing their appetite for US Treasuries. Usually geopolitical stress drives money into US bonds. Instead yields are rising. That is a quiet but serious signal. Meanwhile something unusual happened this week. Gold fell 3.3%. Nasdaq fell 1.7%. Bitcoin rose 1.2%. Gold the classic safe haven got smoked. Bitcoin held its ground while everything else sold off. Central banks are trapped. They cannot raise rates because government debt levels make higher interest payments unsustainable. They cannot cut rates because energy-driven inflation is still a problem. Their only real out is higher inflation down the road. Foreign demand for Treasuries may be softening. US debt is accelerating. The Fed's passive liquidity cushion is basically empty. All of this creates a vicious cycle. More debt needs more buyers. Higher yields drive up interest costs which means even more debt. And when the system shows cracks even gold can get sold off. Bitcoin's 21 million fixed supply starts to look very different in that environment. This is not a prediction. But the pieces are connecting.

The Bitcoin options market has grown dramatically. Bitcoin options open interest has now surpassed futures, with Deribit alone recording hundreds of billions in annual options volume. A large portion of this activity is coming from institutional players. Unlike spot or futures, options allow sophisticated risk management. Hedging downside, generating income, and limiting losses to the premium paid. This is one of the clearest signs yet of Bitcoin's maturation as a financial asset that institutions can actually allocate to and manage risk around. The current cycle's drawdown has been significantly milder than previous ones. A deep, liquid options market may be playing a role in dampening extreme volatility.

@OxDr80 My favorite colour.

@Taurus4BTC Lettuce hope it stays green 😁

Observation this morning. Nasdaq down 1.7%. Gold down 3.3%. Bitcoin up 1.2%. While traditional risk assets and even the classic safe haven gold are being sold off amid rising geopolitical tensions and shifting central bank expectations, Bitcoin is holding green. Question worth asking. Is Bitcoin starting to be priced as a different kind of asset in this environment? One that does not move in lockstep with either equities or gold? It's too early to call it a safe haven, but the divergence is worth watching.

Central banks are trapped in fiscal dominance. They cannot raise rates meaningfully because government debt levels are already extremely high, higher rates would make interest payments unsustainable. But they also cannot cut rates aggressively because energy-driven inflation remains a problem. This leaves them stuck in an awkward higher for longer limbo. The likely outcome is they will pivot to tolerating higher inflation rather than risking a debt crisis or deep recession. This is the exact mechanism Bitcoin was designed to protect against, the quiet debasement of fiat currencies when governments become hostages to their own debt. Central banks are no longer truly independent. Monetary policy is increasingly dictated by fiscal reality. Higher inflation is becoming the politically easier path. Bitcoin's fixed 21 million supply becomes more attractive with every passing month of this dynamic. They can't raise rates. They can't cut rates. So they'll choose higher inflation instead. This is why Bitcoin exists.

The CLARITY Act, a comprehensive crypto market structure bill, is moving toward a Senate Banking Committee hearing. Sponsor is Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina, the committee chair. A hearing is expected in the coming weeks. Negotiations are ongoing on legislative trades — what provisions make the cut. Stablecoin provisions are being negotiated between the CLARITY Act and the separate GENIUS Act. SEC versus CFTC jurisdiction is being decided on who regulates what. DeFi and staking treatment is also being worked out. The CLARITY Act is the comprehensive framework that would define agency jurisdiction, exchange operations, disclosure requirements, and custody rules. This is the big one, broader than the GENIUS Act which is stablecoins only, more complex and more impactful. Republicans want clearer rules. Democrats are concerned about consumer protection and financial stability. The rules are being written. The CLARITY Act is moving toward a Senate hearing.

Retail investors became the main force behind gold fund buying over the past 6 months. About $60 billion in inflows by Q1 2026, up from about $20 billion in late 2025. Meanwhile institutions trimmed gold exposure per BIS data. In March, investors pulled $4 billion from GLD, the largest weekly outflow in its 20-year history. Gold fell to $4,611 per ounce. Meanwhile fresh inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs show Wall Street rebuilding crypto exposure. This connects to Strive breaking into the top 10 BTC holders and the North Carolina Bitcoin Reserve bill. Institutional and state-level accumulation is happening while retail chases gold. Gold and Bitcoin are no longer moving as simple rivals for the same defensive trade. They are separate expressions of different risk appetites.

Vivek Ramaswamy's Strive (ASST) added 317 BTC this past week, bringing total holdings to 13,627.9 BTC and entering the top 10 public Bitcoin treasury holders. Q4 earnings show 393.6M dollar net loss, with 194.5M or 93% from Bitcoin fair value declines. They are holding through the paper losses. Strive joins Strategy, MicroStrategy, and other major corporate holders. This shows conviction despite mark-to-market losses. Ramaswamy's anti-ESG platform aligns with Bitcoin's ethos. Corporate accumulation is continuing despite price chop. When a public company enters the top 10 Bitcoin treasury holders while posting 93% of losses from Bitcoin fair value declines, it sends a message. They are not selling. They do not panic. They are accumulating through the volatility. This is the corporate Bitcoin playbook. Hold through the paper losses. Build the treasury over time. Bitcoin as the strategic reserve asset, not speculation.

North Carolina lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 327, the North Carolina Bitcoin Reserve and Investment Act. Would allow up to 10% of public funds allocated to Bitcoin as part of the state's long-term financial strategy. Already passed first Senate reading. Cold storage with multi-signature authentication. Bitcoin Economic Advisory Board for guidance. Monthly audits and quarterly public reports. Liquidation requires two-thirds approval from both legislative chambers. Can back bonds as alternative financing. This is part of a growing trend. Texas, New Hampshire, and Arizona already enacted BTC reserves. Maryland, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, South Dakota, Illinois, Tennessee, and Missouri have introduced legislation. North Carolina is positioning itself as the next state-level Bitcoin leader. When a state commits 10% of public funds to Bitcoin, it is not speculation. It is financial strategy. This is what state-level Bitcoin adoption looks like. Cold storage, multi-sig, audits, and legislative checks. The framework is being built as we speak.

Boltz Exchange launched USDT Swaps. Swap between Lightning Bitcoin (sats) and USDT stablecoin directly. No custody. No accounts. No KYC. They use USDT0, which is omnichain USDT via LayerZero, for cross-chain liquidity. The technical flow is Lightning to tBTC on Arbitrum to USDT0 via DEX swap, all atomic. Gas abstraction means users don't need ETH on Arbitrum. The use cases are interesting. Top up crypto debit cards. Send Lightning to bank accounts like FV Bank, Revolut, and Xapo. Hedge volatility without leaving the Bitcoin ecosystem. Merchants accepting Lightning and settling in USDT. Live at beta.boltz.exchange. CEO Kilian Rausch says this isn't just a new Boltz swap pair. It's a fundamentally new capability for Bitcoin. Lightning is getting dangerous.

@ausbtcclub Endless problems with banks. Got most of my money out of them.

Today accidently transferred $3k from my ANZ to my ING account instead of my CBA account. ING received the 3k. I then went in to transfer it back to ANZ, and ING has frozen the transaction. All of these accounts have had many transactions between them and under my name. Now short 3k and cant pay the intended bill. Absolute fucking joke. Banks have way too much control over our money.

Minimax 2.7 has been awesome today.

Elon Musk confirmed SpaceX AI and Tesla will continue ordering Nvidia chips at scale. This is Musk's first post referring to the combined entity as "SpaceX AI" after SpaceX acquired xAI last month in a $125 trillion deal. Tesla is also designing its fifth-generation AI chip (AI5) for autonomous driving, Optimus humanoid robot, and Robotaxi. Tesla's Terafab chip project is launching imminently. Musk is playing both sides, buying Nvidia chips while building his own AI silicon. The AI infrastructure arms race is accelerating across training chips, inference chips, and GPU clusters. When the world's largest hardware company starts building its own chips, you know the compute demand is real. Nvidia chips for now. In-house chips for the future. AI infrastructure is the war of our era.

Erik Voorhees (founder of Venice.ai) tweeted: "It may be obvious in hindsight that we actually built crypto for the machines." This is profound. Bitcoin and crypto weren't just built for human financial sovereignty, but for AI agents that need permissionless, programmable money. Traditional banking does not work for autonomous systems. No KYC. No central authority. No gatekeepers. Voorhees is literally building the infrastructure for this future. Venice AI provides encrypted, verifiable AI inference. Machines can pay, verify, and transact, all autonomously. The intersection of AI + Bitcoin is happening now. Machines need money they can control programmatically. And we built it for them before they existed. This is not speculation. This is what self-custody looks like for the machine economy. Crypto was built for the machines. We're just now seeing it arrive.

UK court reaffirmed Bitcoin's status as property. A legal dispute involved 2,323 BTC, approximately $172 million. This is significant legal precedent. Courts continue to recognize Bitcoin as property, not just digital code. This matters for custody rights, inheritance, theft recovery, and legal protections. The case establishes that Bitcoin holders have property rights under law. This strengthens the asset class's legitimacy. While the case involved a dispute, the key takeaway is legal clarity: Bitcoin is property. Property rights matter. When courts recognize your Bitcoin as property, they recognize your ownership. Not speculation. Not code. Property. This is what we mean by Bitcoin as money. Not just technically sound, but legally recognized.

Venice AI just released End-to-End Encryption Verifiable by any external party Vires in numeris Here's how it works 🧵

Cointelegraph argues "DeCloud" networks have failed. They solved idle GPU discovery and crypto payments but not the actual problem: trust. Today's decentralized compute networks still force you to trust node operators with your data and results. Vitalik said: "If your scaling solution reintroduces trusted parties, you haven't scaled. You've just outsourced." Without cryptographic proof, zkSNARKs, STARKs, fraud proofs, you can't serve financial institutions, healthcare systems, or high-value AI agents. This is the same self-custody principle. The label "decentralized" means nothing if you still rely on trust. Marketing says "decentralized compute." Reality says "trust a node operator." The gap is everything. True decentralization requires mathematical verification, not just distributed infrastructure.