Brandon Marshall: Well, hello, hello, everybody, and welcome to Good for Bitcoin, your weekly pulse on Bitcoin innovation. We are live on goodforbitcoin.com, also streaming to the new X handle ⁓ @goodforbtc Really cool that we were able to ⁓ somehow that handle was not taken. ⁓ so grabbed it and ⁓ we are we are live streaming there as well. So happy Friday, everybody. Happy Friday, Kate. How was your week?

Kate: Hey Brandon. Yeah, it's a good week. ⁓ that's so cool that like we were able to get the handle. like there's like a dot BTC or like any kind of like Bitcoin domain name dot com, I feel like they're always taken. ⁓ So yeah, on scooping that up. Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: I know, I know. Yeah, good for Bitcoin was taken, but good for BTC, I feel like is better as a handle anyway. So it's shorter, right? Shorter is usually better. ⁓ so yeah.

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it was a good week. It was kind of similar last week. Like not a ton really happened, a little bit quieter. but yeah. That's true. Yep.

Brandon Marshall: Mm. It's a short week too, memor Memorial Day here in the US, right? But some big announcements though. Big announcements on your end.

Kate: Yeah. Some very big ones. I know. Very exciting. We'll talk about it a little bit, but I mean it's like a really big announcement. There's not like a ton of details. It's kind of one of those like ⁓ happening and it's big and and kind of it. But yeah. ⁓

Brandon Marshall: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. yeah, big news though, nonetheless. also big news. I sat down with ⁓ with Jacob from Hermetica last week. I think I mentioned it on the show last week, but we published that episode on Wednesday, that was with their them raising their HBTC cap from 50 to 75 BTC. and they also crushed it and they hit that cat the new cap in 24 hours, just like they did in their last one. ⁓ but that show

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: was really well received. I think it got like a ton of views relative to like some of the other episodes that we put out. So so yeah, that was that was a good one. Go go back and watch that if you haven't yet, if you're listening.

Kate: ⁓ that's awesome. stuff. No. ⁓ I was writing so like I write stack snacks every week and I was writing it up last night they like just made the announcement that like they'd opened capacity so I like put in like ⁓ Hermetica up capacity and then I was proofreading it this morning and like scrolling the timeline I'm like ⁓ and closed Yeah ⁓ Yeah that funny

Brandon Marshall: It's already full. Yep. And it's gone. Yep. Yeah. So I'll I'll give a plug for Hermetica if you want to, you know, get on the next, you know, cap raise. I think you can go to their website and you can sign up to get notified over email and they'll invite you over email first. ⁓ so you'll kind of like skip the line if you if you want to do that. So yeah, shout out to Hermetica. I always like

Kate: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Brandon Marshall: I mentioned it on the show with Jacob, but like I always appreciate their transparency. Like I feel like they are so like forthcoming like what the risks are with, you know DeFi in general, like with specifically how they are handling things. So I just always really appreciate the transparency from them. So Jacob's welcome on the show anytime to talk about STRC and what they're doing there.

Kate: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Agreed. Love it. I also think their marketing has just been really good lately. Like they've had some really good tweets, one liners, their emails are solid. I've just like it's something in like subconsciously noticing like, hey, they do like a really good job at just like communicating too. So

Brandon Marshall: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, agreed. Yeah, they're just killing it over there. Shout out to Jacob and and Hermetica, the team over there. ⁓ cool. Well, let's get into the Bitcoin Treasury companies. starting off with Strive, they bought 1,109 BTC. They now hold very nice number, sixteen thousand five hundred Bitcoin. And they I overtook Coinbase in Bitcoin holdings ⁓ by eight BTC. So we'll see if ⁓ Coinbase comes

Kate: Fortunate. Love it.

Brandon Marshall: clawing back the near future.

Kate: Funny. Then we have Smarter Web Company. They bought 10 Bitcoin and they now hold 2869.

Brandon Marshall: DDC Enterprise Limited bought 131 Bitcoin and they now hold 2714

Kate: And then we have the French telecom company, Secan. they've ended their Bitcoin treasury strategy. So last they were one of the largest treasury companies. I think at their peak. I think pivoting. That was great French. they're pivoting more like hardware. I don't I think that's kind of like what they were specialized in. And I'm not sure if they were one of those companies that like

Brandon Marshall: We're quoi. Ha ha.

Kate: you know, their overall business strategy was failing. So they're like, well, if we just buy Bitcoin, everything will be happy dandy. And it didn't work out for them. I'm not really sure if that's what happened, but I think they're like slowly starting to invest more in like hardware tech again. I know. I think they're they at their peak they were they held over three thousand. They're down to around six hundred and fifty six right now.

Brandon Marshall: Mm. Yeah.

Kate: But I was reading an article about it and they launched their strategy with your fave, Corey Clifston. Yeah. had to put that in there for you. ⁓

Brandon Marshall: ⁓ great. Yeah. A winning strategy, no doubt. Yeah, that's funny. yeah, bummer. Well, you know, ⁓ all these other companies I guess will will buy whatever they're selling. Yeah. Funny, it reminds me you were saying like why did they like get into Bitcoin originally and it was I was reminded of remember like a few years ago when all these companies were like integrating like blockchain into their names just to like try to pump their price? ⁓ there was like a there was like a beer company that like put blockchain in their price and their like stock rose by

Kate: They're scooping it up. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yep.

Brandon Marshall: I don't know, like 8X or something like that, just because blockchain. Yeah, one of those. Interesting time. Yeah. Sign me up.

Kate: Yeah. Blockchain. Blockchain resort. The worst idea I've ever.

Brandon Marshall: ⁓ strategy did not buy Bitcoin this week, ⁓ but they did buy $1.5 billion in 2029 convertible bonds, at an 8% discount to par. basically, this means is strategy they have debt, they owed money on these loans that are due in 2025, and they paid off $1.5 billion of that to buy back a part of those loans at an 8% discount. They reduced their total debt from 8.2 billion to 6.7 billion paid roughly 92 cents on the dollar to do it. I guess in 2022 they did something very similar. ⁓ they bought back some debt, ⁓ but they did it at 80 cents on the dollar. So ⁓ this isn't a new thing for them, but also this time around, it was actually, I mean, there's still like a little bit of a haircut, but it's less bad than the 2022 buyback that they did. ⁓ but they also still have eight hundred and seventy one million dollars in their USD reserve to fund S T R C payments. So they still got a lot of dollars left to just continue that that S T R C engine.

Kate: Love that. All right.

Brandon Marshall: we gotta get into this next story. someone burned 107 Bitcoin on Monday, and nobody really knows why, because it's you know, we're just seeing these actions in the blockchain, and nobody is coming forth saying it was me. So we just have to guess. basically what happened. So this this one Bitcoin address, there's this Bitcoin address that exists out there, and it begins with 21s. It's like one, one, one, ⁓ 20 times 40L.

Kate: Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: VT2. it's a very common ⁓ burn address because it is basically provably unspendable. So a lot of different things use that. Stax actually uses it. it's the address that Stax miners ⁓ use to the BTC to that they're bidding as part of proof of transfer. So it's it's a common thing, it's a very old address too. It goes back to even like I think Counterparty has used it in the past. Basically, just like a this like a default like Bitcoin burn address. people also like will send Bitcoin to like Satoshi's address as like a burn address, but this one is like provably unspendable. So basically this address, this this other address ⁓ sent five different transactions to this burn address. They were all broadcast within the same minute, and they were each emptying a different address that had been reused. those five addresses were originally funded with 136 Bitcoin on 10th, 2014. at the time that was around $72,000. and at its peak, that address held 174 Bitcoin. the original 136 BTC appears to have been originally from Mt. Gox and a few other sources from 2017 until September 2024. they gradually withdrew amounts to a heavily reused Kraken deposit address. then the wallet didn't do anything, it just sat for like 20 months. they made a large deposit of BTC on March 10th, 2024, and then withdrew it all again a few weeks later. and then they deposited a different seven BTC back to Kraken. So basically they this this is an address that you know spans over 10 years, right? It's like a 10 10-year history of this address that's been used and reused and and funds have moved around.

Kate: Yeah, yeah.

Brandon Marshall: ⁓ and then finally on May 25th, which was ⁓ on Monday, they for some reason sent a hundred and BTC to this burn address. And nobody nobody quite knows why, although there are some theories. And I'm curious what you think is ⁓ the most probable one. some of theories that I was seeing online, like some weird form of like tax strategy, like burning tokens to like offset losses or get your gains or something. religious reasons, I guess. Some people were saying that like there's certain like religious orders have like these formal vows of poverty. maybe sender was under threat, and rather than giving up the coins to an attacker, they burned them. maybe they're they connected their AI to their wallet and like the AI rugged them or something. maybe the funds were illicit, they KYC, they quickly tried to destroy the evidence. I don't know, those are just some of the theories that I was seeing around there, but What do you think happened? Why would somebody burn a hundred and seven Bitcoin and not just send it to me or anybody?

Kate: they're going through a really nasty divorce too. They didn't want the they didn't want their partner to get the kid half. ⁓ ⁓ did me bad. ⁓ it could be something like that. I feel like it has to be some like personal life reason and the person probably has a lot of money otherwise. I don't know. I just can't imagine.

Brandon Marshall: Mmm, okay, yeah. Yeah, I don't want my wife to have it, so they're gonna so nobody's gonna have it. Yep, okay. ⁓

Kate: Maybe the attacker one, but at the same time, like I don't I don't know.

Brandon Marshall: A lot of Bitcoin, hundred and seven BTC.

Kate: It's a lot of bitcoin and like I feel like there's other ways that you could go around that without like completely making them unspendable.

Brandon Marshall: Yeah, I know. Yeah, hundred hundred seven B T C is almost eight million dollars. So it's a lot of money.

Kate: Anyway. Yeah. Anyway, it would be really funny if they do come forward at some point and let us know why, but I don't know if that'll ever happen.

Brandon Marshall: Yeah, I think like I mean clearly this is somebody that's been using Bitcoin for a long time. I think there was also people that were speculating, like, maybe they just like didn't know ⁓ to use Bitcoin properly or something. Like I feel like they they did. so yeah, it seems ⁓ I

Kate: What's the thing? Probably not. No. You have to be like very specific to send it to a burn address. Like I wouldn't even know how to do that. Like I wouldn't I'd have to like go out of my way and do research on how to do that. So

Brandon Marshall: Yeah, like if if you didn't know if you if you weren't like super familiar with Bitcoin, you probably wouldn't even be aware that like something like this burn address exists. So like yeah, so I I agree. I don't think that's plausible, but

Kate: Exactly. I don't I I stand by my divorce theory. I think it was just a really spiteful for super spiteful. Yeah. He's like, You're not getting nothing from me. We're both going down. too funny. Anyway. Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: I like that one. I think that's smart. Yeah. Yep. I like it. Well, somewhat related. you put some some notes in here, so maybe I'll throw this one to you, but this York story is yeah, nuts. ⁓

Kate: Sure. This is like the epitome of a waste of time.

Brandon Marshall: Ha ha ha.

Kate: But I love it. We're gonna get into it. Okay. title on this one is Anonymous Plaintiff Seeks Legal Title to $293 billion in dormant Bitcoin without holding any private keys. So here's the story. As we all know, there's a lot of Bitcoin that's dormant. It doesn't move, and that's likely because people have lost their keys. Maybe they died. a lot of it is ⁓ million coins. just b that hasn't moved ever, or at least not in a very, very long time. time so is worth a lot of money currently 293 billion. so there's this case ⁓ it's an un anonymous ⁓ Doe, and he's using a legal trick to claim that he owns ⁓ of that Bitcoin. I guess in New York there's this old law called Finder's Keeper's Law for Lost Items. so it's basically like if you ⁓ turn something after a certain period of time, if no one claims it, I think you get to claim it as your own. so he turned like USB drives of address data, basically like turning in the Bitcoin to the police. And so the laws basically would give you ownership faster if the lost item is worth less than ten dollars. So he hired this expert to make this claim that of this dormant Bitcoin is basically worth nothing because he doesn't have access to the keys. And so if you don't have access to the keys, you don't have access to the Bitcoin. So he's basically saying it's worthless, but it's still mine. and if if you claim that it's under $10, you basically get to skip like a very long Law process, waiting period. typically if something has a lot of value, it'll take like a long time for these claims to go through. So even he wins and for reason they claim, okay, this bitcoin is yours, ⁓ he doesn't anything. the judge can declare that he's the legal owner of this bitcoin on paper, but As we know, if you don't have the keys, they're not your coins. You can't move them. So yeah, Bitcoin Bitcoin doesn't care about that. So Bitcoin will never actually move. And then might be wondering, like, well, why would why would anyone do this? And it's because if any of these coins ever showed up on a regulated exchange, like Coinbase, Kraken, anything like that, this Noah Doe could claim that

Brandon Marshall: Right. Ha ha.

Kate: it's legally his. so you have to freeze it and kind of like investigate it. And this would do is it would require the person who actually owns that Bitcoin to like prove themselves and it could break their anonymity, like yeah, force them to reveal themselves. And so really the only thing that he's getting out of this is having like leverage over these regulated intermediaries and instead of having like yeah no obviously he can't seize the coins directly and he wouldn't be able to take them from the person who has the keys but it's really just to have some sort of leverage maybe over the person saying like well if you like maybe if you me some Bitcoin then like I won't make you reveal yourself or something. So it's just like weird leverage like this.

Brandon Marshall: Yeah, I think this is just gonna get thrown out immediately. I don't know. Like I I think mean, I don't know the exact laws, but you know, it's not like Bitcoin ⁓ ⁓ only operating in New York, right? Like there's ⁓ is is global, obviously. so it's not like all of the all of these things were in New York and you can't like prove that. It would be impossible, you know? so

Kate: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Brandon Marshall: Yeah. Just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't think ⁓

Kate: It's seems like a major waste of time. But anyway. It's like the guy who

Brandon Marshall: Yeah. Yeah.

Kate: would send things to the IRS. ⁓ I forget what it is. Maybe you've heard this, but like he his whole goal was to like as waste as much time as he could with the IRS and just like make their job miserable. So like anytime he would do anything with taxes, he would send like page at a time and he would send like six hundred pages and they'd all be sent individually. Like there was some story about this, but ⁓ like made it his life mission. ⁓

Brandon Marshall: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or like people people that play they they pay fines with like pennies, ⁓ stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens there. would certainly be like a very dangerous precedent if something like that came about. But

Kate: Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. It's just more annoying than anything. But

Brandon Marshall: Yeah, yeah. I saw this which was kind of cool, and then my hopes were like a little bit dashed with like exactly what it is on the back end. ⁓ so curious your thoughts. But basically this headline from Kraken, they had launched Bitcoin vaults, and like they're how they were advertising it is like hold BTC or N BTC. And I was like, huh, that sounds a familiar. ⁓ but yeah, anyway, I guess how it works.

Kate: Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Brandon Marshall: Heather advertising it is like you just deposit native Bitcoin and you earn native Bitcoin, I think. And like, yeah, that sounds great. But it's it's definitely much more ⁓ is like a vault product. So you're depositing Bitcoin. that Bitcoin is then converted into KBTC, which is like a wrapped or tokenized representation of Bitcoin. It's moved on to the ink network, it's then deposited into Veda vaults, and Veda, I guess, is ⁓ the Company or the organization or whatever that powers crack and earn, like their earn product. ⁓ and it's managed by this company Centaura. so basically it's just ⁓ in different DeFi lending and borrowing strategies on protocols like Ave and Morpho and stuff ⁓ to to you know generate a yield. so in in one way it's cool, like most vault products, right? It's abstracting away a lot of the complexity. so it's

Kate: Mm.

Brandon Marshall: you know, for for the user's perspective, you're not having to do all these like weird tax right? The the tax burden is sort of ⁓ you know, on Kraken now instead of on the user. It's just Bitcoin in, Bitcoin out, which is nice. but yeah, it it's not quite as easy or quite as simple as like, or quite as risk free as like, you know, we're just depositing Bitcoin and then you can get your Bitcoin back. And ⁓ there's there's is a lot more risk there.

Kate: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Brandon Marshall: ⁓ so I was seeing a lot of people criticizing, you know, their their approach and ⁓ you know, calling it like Bitcoin in, Bitcoin out because of that.

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. I think like it y it's you you're using the Bitcoin that you're holding in your Kraken account. And so at that point it's Kraken's Bitcoin technically. ⁓ so again, yeah, it's one of those things that like it sounds really nice until you really understand what's going on under the hood and then you're like, ⁓ it's kind of more in this more of the same. ⁓ yeah.

Brandon Marshall: Mm-hmm. Yeah, because if you're if you're depositing you're depositing the BTC into Kraken, who like at that point, who cares? Like it's C Fi. ⁓ who like it it it's it's just it's C Fi. So like you it like that's fine, you know, if you want to do like different C Fi like strategies, you know, they there's obvious like I I use Coinbase, I use, you know, some of these other products that are out there, like that's fine.

Kate: Mm. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: But just be honest about it, I guess. Don't try to be like, yeah, it's native Bitcoin, you know, and you're earning native Bitcoin. Like, yeah, it's it's it's Bitcoin on paper until you like withdraw from Kraken. ⁓ I guess.

Kate: Mm-hmm. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we've been talking about this. I mean it it just got released, so when things like this get released, we like usually compare like, Okay, well, at stacks, like how is it different? What's happening? And so way that we've like kind of thought about it or broke it down is like usually if you're getting yield, it comes from one, borrower is paying you interest to use it, which is basically you don't own the Bitcoin at that point, or two, a protocol is you rewards to help secure it. And so that's what Stax is doing, and that's how you know we're really gonna differentiate ourselves is that you're not lending it out, you're removing custody like you hold it and your Bitcoin is helping secure the Stacks network. And know, maybe yields aren't as high as some other offerings, but you can be sure that your at the end of the day, your Bitcoin is yours. And are the biggest I think Bitcoiners always ask when they hear the word yield and ⁓ stuff like that. So yeah. We'll see how it plays out. I don't know. I feel like a lot of these get a lot of hype and then they kind of fade off because people realize it's not that much different than what's already on the market.

Brandon Marshall: Yep. Yeah, that's a good point. again, it's just like not your keys, not your coins, right? Like it it that's not I don't know. That's not what this is. Basically. So you're having to yeah, there's a lot of trust that you're having to put into like Kraken and and and these other DeFi, you know, platforms ⁓ that are like behind the scenes to

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing, is like you trust Kraken. I trust Kraken, but like when they then use other or bridges or products, it's like, well, I didn't know that you were using Morpho like no no shade on Morpho. It's just like I haven't done my due diligence on Morpho. So like it's it's tough, yeah.

Brandon Marshall: Mm-hmm. Right. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep. well, final big piece of news here was ⁓ speaking of Stacks, ⁓ Stacks announced that UTXO Management, ⁓ which is the parent company of Nakamoto is the parent company, excuse me. ⁓ so that's David Bailey's ⁓ sort of asset management arm ⁓ folded into Nakamoto, I think just about a month or two ago, ⁓ was when we talked about that happening. ⁓ they are the inaugural participant in Bitcoin staking.

Kate: Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Brandon Marshall: On stacks. Very cool.

Kate: Yeah, it's very cool. that's like kind of the announcement. I don't know. There's not like a ton ⁓ more information. other yeah, it's just been I feel like it's been a kind of like a deal in the works for a little while. they are huge. Like I I I don't know if I could think of a better

Brandon Marshall: Ha ha ha. Yeah.

Kate: partner to like bring in a better name, like that has more legitimacy. I guess maybe strategy be ⁓ top one. But when comes to like being I don't true to Bitcoin or like Bitcoin only, like I don't know if it gets bigger. so they're like a pretty solid, pretty solid partner to legitimize this product with. I can imagine, you know

Brandon Marshall: Mm. Yeah.

Kate: It'll kind of start the domino effect once other people see. So it's pretty cool.

Brandon Marshall: Yeah, I I agree. I think like being being part of Nakamoto, Nakamoto obviously like owns like Bitcoin magazine, the Bitcoin conference, like having you know, they're they're a huge, you know, media arm right in the Bitcoin ⁓ ecosystem. So having that company ⁓ sort of vouch for this this is really big. it's also really big because a couple of years ago, it's almost two years ago.

Kate: Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: during the height of like Bitcoin ordinals and like Bitcoin L2 season, when you had all these Bitcoin L2s, you know, that were propping up. they were all there was like a lot of camaraderie around that time where like there's all these Bitcoin L2s, you know, they were all like trying to do things a little bit differently. They were, you know, the the way that they were building on Bitcoin was different, but they were all building on Bitcoin and that was like this unifying sort of connection. ⁓ and then Bitcoin magazine released this updated

Kate: Mm-hmm.

Brandon Marshall: editorial policy how they would be covering Bitcoin L2s. And basically through because of this policy, they essentially like banned coverage of stacks. because of the STX token, one of their like one of their new policies was that if like anything other than BTC was used as like the native asset on the network, it was ineligible. So because of the STX token, like stacks just became ineligible for coverage in

Kate: Mm. Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: ⁓ Bitcoin magazine. so obviously like everyone on in the Stacks ecosystem was like really pissed off. there was like a ton of controversy. This was also yeah, like during the like the height peak of like Ordinal's mania, like David Bailey joined like the Ordinal show and everyone was complaining to him. And it was just like a really big deal at the time. So ⁓ just knowing like that history of like you know what where Stacks was in terms of like coverage and treatment ⁓ from Bitcoin magazine.

Kate: Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: To now, like seeing this news ⁓ UTXO management, you know, this the story was was published in ⁓ in the Bitcoin magazine. ⁓ and just seeing that arc is really cool. because Bitcoin staking is so close to the L1. I mean, you could certainly argue now that like SBTC, you know, is like the more native asset that's on, you know, the network now with stacks. So yeah.

Kate: Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: It's just really cool to to see, you know, in just a couple of years how far Stacks has come to become more you know, Bitcoin aligned, especially, you know, going back to like the Nakamoto update and everything there. But just everything, you know, that Stacks has done since then has been kind of ⁓ leading up to this moment of of Bitcoin magazine and I guess Nakamoto ⁓ you know, being ⁓ vouching for Stacks at point, which is is really cool.

Kate: Yeah. Yeah, it's hugely motivating to like get almost validation like that. You know, like I think thing about Yeah, like working at stacks and I know that you felt this is like a lot of us are Bitcoiners first and like trying to someone that it's like we're yeah, we're like we're vouch the Bitcoin ethos, but you have to bridge. Like it's always been like a point of friction, and getting Bitcoin only Bitcoiners like trust us. And I feel like, know, having a company like this, being like, Yep, we're in ⁓ is like, okay, yes, it's ⁓ makes it so much easier to about stacks, to promote it, to yeah, people excited about it. Like it just feels kinda like a breath of fresh air. So

Brandon Marshall: Yeah. Yeah. And that first, you know, having having that that big name behind it, you know, that first one, like getting that first one in the door is always the hardest, right? ⁓ and then that's like the first domino. And then, you know, it it invites more people to to potentially come in and and use it. So hopefully the first of many ⁓ that we'll see coming into stacks and ⁓ creating demand. Love to see it.

Kate: Yeah. Hopefully. The DeFi flywheel. The Bitcoin economy iceberg. Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: Yeah, that's right. That iceberg. Yeah. few quick headlines to to wrap it up. I saw Coinbase has reintroduced direct deposit two years after removing it. ⁓ this was something that like I I personally was like using through Coinbase. Now I use I use River ⁓ for for direct deposit, which is great. But they they they re-added it. So now you can basically get paid in Bitcoin, you can set up your direct deposit.

Kate: Nice. Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: ⁓ through your work, you have like a routing number and an accounting number. And ⁓ you can mean, there's other, you know, you can do Ethereum or whatever. but you know, obviously we we want to do Bitcoin here. but yeah, they re int reintroduce direct deposit, so that's pretty cool. yeah.

Kate: Nice. ⁓ and then we have Zest, who obviously part of the Stacks ecosystem. They launched native Bitcoin lending. So you can connect your wallet and supply Bitcoin natively. You don't have to it doesn't have to be SBDC. and then obviously you can earn yield on that. So I think it's one point five eight right now. and you're earning yield from that, which is pretty cool. We're getting very native. Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: This is really cool. I didn't just cause I was so focused on like the Hermetica news, I didn't really look too closely into it. How are they like how behind the scenes, like how is this actually working? Are they like swapping it to SBTC like on behalf of the user as like a vault thing? Or like how how how this actually work?

Kate: They are using SPTC. ⁓ I don't know if I'd be able to explain the whole thing, but I feel like there is like an SPTC component to this. So it's not I wouldn't say like this is not like fully self-custodial, but it is you're putting Bitcoin in, you're getting Bitcoin out. So yeah, definitely do your due diligence on this, but there is like an SPTC component for sure. Yeah.

Brandon Marshall: Yeah. Mm-hmm. We'll have to get Tycho on the show 'cause we should probably have a lot to cover with him too, like all the stuff that they've been doing with, you know, their TGE and ⁓ yeah.

Kate: Yeah, and they have they have collateral vaults coming soon too. Bitcoin collateral vaults. they have this. Yeah, like it's Yeah. Yeah, that that would be a great guest. Yep.

Brandon Marshall: Treasury also. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. All right, Tyco, we're coming for ya. ⁓ I saw that SoFi launched a stable coin, ⁓ SoFi USD. and that just makes them the first US national bank to launch their own stable coin. So that's pretty cool.

Kate: Mm-hmm. Very cool. you can explain the Cash App one too. I kinda saw it, but like I'm I can't use Cash App, so I don't really anytime I see something Cash App, I'm just like, that sounds cool. I'm sure it's gonna be amazing. I can't access it. ⁓

Brandon Marshall: Bummer. Well, I mean, so basically, you know, Cash App and Venmo and, you know, these other ones, they all work pretty similarly. Where, you know, you you you load up your account with dollars and then you can send them like very quickly to other people that have accounts. but basically they have now integrated Cash App has now integrated stable coins into their platform. so everything, you know, according to them, everything runs on your existing USD balance. So there's no separate wallet. There's no managing like chains or you know, setup or like fees or anything like that. but it's now just like plugged into the stablecoin infrastructure. So if you have like a balance in Cash App, you can like send and receive USDC on Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, and Arbitrum. And it works, I guess, is ⁓ is I tested myself. ⁓ but yeah, it's just basically like

Kate: Very cool.

Brandon Marshall: Now your Cash App balance is a stablecoin balance and it's just connected to USDC and you can just send, you know, on chain as well, ⁓ or just like natively in like the Cash App ecosystem. So that's pretty cool.

Kate: Mm. Yeah. ⁓ that's awesome. Love that. All right. Yep.

Brandon Marshall: All right. I think that wraps it up for the week. ⁓ thank you everybody for tuning in. if you haven't yet, please go follow the new handle. It's at goodforbtc on X. you can also go to goodforbitcoin.com and you can find the handle there. but yeah, thank everybody for tuning in. We will see you next week.

Kate: Awesome. Have a good weekend, guys. Bye.